West of Here (Thorndike Press Large Print Basic Series) - Hardcover

Evison, Jonathan

3.37

2,787 ratings by Goodreads

9781410436368: West of Here (Thorndike Press Large Print Basic Series)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1410436365 ISBN 13: 9781410436368

Publisher: Thorndike Press, 2011

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A narrative set in a fictional town on Washington State's Pacific coast contrasts the goals of the pioneers who settled there in 1890 with the trivial pursuits of the town's present-day inhabitants.

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Review:

Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2011: Jonathan Evison opens his electrifying epic, West of Here, at the Elwha River dam, where over a hundred years since settlers of the fictional town of Port Bonita tamed the river, their descendants gather in anticipation of the dam's blasting, and a new era of restoration. Across the next five hundred pages, Evison's story moves between 2006 and the town's earliest days at the close of the 19th century, overlaying stories of the people who passed through or dug in at Port Bonita, which swelled from settlement to town on the ragged shoreline of Washington State's Strait of Juan de Fuca. The past is populated by intrepid folk--an exploration party penetrating the Olympic Mountain range in the depths of winter, Klallam natives sickened by homeland eviction and whiskey, a young feminist at odds with motherhood, a prostitute doing covert battle with her whorehouse's owner, and an idealistic entrepreneur, blasting the river canyon into submission. In 2006, we meet their softer progeny--an ex-con who flees into the mountains with a stash of Snickers, the lonely parole officer determined to find him, a fish processing plant worker with a Bigfoot fixation, a native woman who rethinks her whole life when her son has a psychic break, and more memorable characters haunted by the past, by their unlived lives, by themselves. Though its themes are weighty, West of Here never bogs down--irreverent humor, lustrous prose, and unexpected moments animate a tale as vast as the land it inhabits. --Mari Malcolm

About the Author:

Jonathan Evison lives on an island on the coast of Washington State. His first novel, All About Lulu, won the Washington State Book Award. This is his third novel.

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