Larry Watson, the author of Montana 1948 and many other fine novels, has just published Let Him Go, his latest foray into literary fiction. Let Him...
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Selected and introduced by Cheryl Strayed, the bestselling author of Wild and the columnist behind "Dear Sugar," The Best American Essays 2013 (Mariner) is a treasure trove of fine writing and thought-provoking essays. Strayed will be joined by contributors Brian Doyle, author of Mink River, Vanessa Veselka, author of Zazen, Kevin Sampsell, author of A Common Pornography, and Michelle Mirsky.
I haven't enjoyed a book this much in so long! Set in a tiny coastal Oregon town, this story is populated with characters who seem to leap off the page and speak their lines into your ear. They are that real. Brian Doyle breaks all the so-called "rules" of good writing, yet this book is rich and layered and beautiful and profound. Riotous and complex, Doyle's lush tale compels you to read faster than you'd like, because you can't stand not knowing just what the heck is going to happen next. Every sentence is a tiny jewel you want to roll around on your tongue and slowly savor. Quirky, unique, and delightful, the tale of Neawanaka gets under your skin and lives inside you. Go read it! Recommended by Dianah, Powell's City of Books
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
Like Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood and Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, Brian Doyle's stunning fiction debut brings a town to life through the jumbled lives and braided stories of its people.
In a small fictional town on the Oregon coast there are love affairs and almost-love-affairs, mystery and hilarity, bears and tears, brawls and boats, a garrulous logger and a silent doctor, rain and pain, Irish immigrants and Salish stories, mud and laughter. There's a Department of Public Works that gives haircuts and counts insects, a policeman addicted to Puccini, a philosophizing crow, beer and berries. An expedition is mounted, a crime committed, and there's an unbelievably huge picnic on the football field. Babies are born. A car is cut in half with a saw. A river confesses what it's thinking...
It's the tale of a town, written in a distinct and lyrical voice, and readers will close the book more than a little sad to leave the village of Neawanaka, on the wet coast of Oregon, beneath the hills that used to boast the biggest trees in the history of the world.
Review:
"Community is the beating heart of this fresh, memorable debut with an omniscient narrator and dozens of characters living in Neawanaka, a small coastal Oregon town. Daniel Cooney, a 12-year-old who wears his hair in three different-colored braids, has a terrible bike accident in the woods and is rescued by a bear. Daniel's grandfather, Worried Man, is able to sense others' pain even from a distance and goes on a dangerous mountain mission to track down the source of time with his dear friend, Cedar. Other key stories involve a young police officer whose life is threatened, a doctor who smokes one cigarette for each apostle per day, a lusty teenage couple who work at a shingle factory, and a crow who can speak English. The fantastical blends with the natural elements in this original, postmodern, shimmering tapestry of small-town life that profits from the oral traditions of the town's population of Native Americans and Irish immigrants. Those intrigued by the cultural heritage of the Pacific Northwest will treasure every lyrical sentence. (Oct.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright PWyxz LLC)
Review:
"If my high-hearted friend Brian Doyle is trying to avoid the nickname 'Paddy,' his wondrous Oregon Coast novel is the wrong feckin' way to go about it. In its sights, settings, insinuations, flora and fauna, his tale is quintessential North Coast, but in its sensibility and lilt this story is as Irish as tin whistles — and the pairing is an unprecedented delight. This thing reads like an Uilleann pipe tour de force by a Sligo County maestro cast up on the shores of County Tillamook. The hauntings and shadows, shards of dark and bright, usurpations by wonder, lust, blarney, yearning, are coast-mythic in flavor but entirely bardic at heart. Doyle's sleights of hand, word, and reality burr up off the page the way bits of heather burr out of a handmade Irish sweater yet the same sweater is stained indigenous orange by a thousand Netarts Bay salmonberries. I've read no Northwest novel remotely like it and enjoyed few novels more. Of an Irishman's Oregon I am nothing but glad to have wandered, Mink River sings and sings." David James Duncan, author of The Brothers K and The River Why
Review:
"Absolutely in the tradition of Northwest literature, richly imagined, distinctive, beautiful... I was pulled along steadily, my heart raced, I held my breath..." Molly Gloss, author of The Hearts of Horses and The Jump-Off Creek
Review:
"Doyle writes with an inventive and seductive style that echoes that of ancient storytellers. This lyrical mix of natural history, poetry, and Salish and Celtic lore offers crime, heartaches, celebrations, healing, and death....Enthusiastically recommended." Library Journal
Review:
"The greatest gift of Mink River is that it provides every reason in the world to see your own village, neighborhood and life in a deeper, more nuanced and connected way." Oregonian
Synopsis:
The story of the small Oregon coast town of Neawanaka and its people.
Brian Doyle is the author of ten books, including Thirsty for the Joy: Australian and American Voices, Epiphanies and Elegies, and The Wet Engine. He edits Portland Magazine at the University of Portland. Doyle's essays have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Orion, the American Scholar, and in newspapers and magazines around the world. His essays have also been reprinted in the annual Best American Essays, Best American Science and Nature Writing, and Best American Spiritual Writing anthologies. Among various honors for his work is the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Courtesy of Mother Daughter Book Club com, February 14, 2013 (view all comments by Courtesy of Mother Daughter Book Club com)
In Mink River, Brian Doyle melds Native American folklore, Irish storytelling, a host of quirky characters, and a little bit of the fantastical to bring a coastal Oregon town to life. The town is Neawanaka, whose residents get by as many real-life Oregon coast residents do: by logging, fishing, catering to tourists and dairy farming.
As in a good story told around a fire on a winter's evening, Doyle lets this one slowly unfold. Readers get to know each character a little bit at a time. Some are revealed intimately, their humanity exposed in both flaws and strengths. Others we know only in bits and pieces as they show the best or worst of themselves. Each causes both good and bad ripples that resonate through the entire town.
Getting used to Doyle's style of writing, which juxtaposes short, staccato sentences against long, train of thought paragraphs, is part of getting into the rhythm of the story. The style makes the reader pay attention to every word, a good thing because both dialogue and description reveals much about Neawanaka and its people. These people, driven by love, fear, insecurity, desire, hope, despair and more come to feel like people you know or wish you knew.
The story of Mink River stayed with me long after I turned the last page. Book clubs that take it up can talk about the nature of small towns, telling stories as a way of understanding our past and our present, discovering the dreams you want to follow, and the different types of characters that make up the tapestry of life. It also may inspire you to learn more about Native American cultures and Irish storytelling traditions. I highly recommend it for groups with readers aged 16 and up.
Barbara Gundle, January 30, 2013 (view all comments by Barbara Gundle)
This book is beautifully written with poetic images and unique word choices. My book group read it and we all loved it! It's a plus that Brian Doyle is a Portland writer. It's set in a fictitious Oregon coastal town and the stories he weaves are a magical combination of Irish and Native American oral traditions.
stylist2thestars, January 30, 2013 (view all comments by stylist2thestars)
A fresh, delicious portrait of life (and lives) in a small coastal community in Oregon.
I spent weeks after finishing this book still thinking of the characters.
Product details
320 pages
Oregon State University Press -
English9780870715853
Reviews:
"Staff Pick"
by Dianah,
I haven't enjoyed a book this much in so long! Set in a tiny coastal Oregon town, this story is populated with characters who seem to leap off the page and speak their lines into your ear. They are that real. Brian Doyle breaks all the so-called "rules" of good writing, yet this book is rich and layered and beautiful and profound. Riotous and complex, Doyle's lush tale compels you to read faster than you'd like, because you can't stand not knowing just what the heck is going to happen next. Every sentence is a tiny jewel you want to roll around on your tongue and slowly savor. Quirky, unique, and delightful, the tale of Neawanaka gets under your skin and lives inside you. Go read it!
by Dianah
"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Community is the beating heart of this fresh, memorable debut with an omniscient narrator and dozens of characters living in Neawanaka, a small coastal Oregon town. Daniel Cooney, a 12-year-old who wears his hair in three different-colored braids, has a terrible bike accident in the woods and is rescued by a bear. Daniel's grandfather, Worried Man, is able to sense others' pain even from a distance and goes on a dangerous mountain mission to track down the source of time with his dear friend, Cedar. Other key stories involve a young police officer whose life is threatened, a doctor who smokes one cigarette for each apostle per day, a lusty teenage couple who work at a shingle factory, and a crow who can speak English. The fantastical blends with the natural elements in this original, postmodern, shimmering tapestry of small-town life that profits from the oral traditions of the town's population of Native Americans and Irish immigrants. Those intrigued by the cultural heritage of the Pacific Northwest will treasure every lyrical sentence. (Oct.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright PWyxz LLC)
"Review"
by David James Duncan, author of The Brothers K and The River Why,
"If my high-hearted friend Brian Doyle is trying to avoid the nickname 'Paddy,' his wondrous Oregon Coast novel is the wrong feckin' way to go about it. In its sights, settings, insinuations, flora and fauna, his tale is quintessential North Coast, but in its sensibility and lilt this story is as Irish as tin whistles — and the pairing is an unprecedented delight. This thing reads like an Uilleann pipe tour de force by a Sligo County maestro cast up on the shores of County Tillamook. The hauntings and shadows, shards of dark and bright, usurpations by wonder, lust, blarney, yearning, are coast-mythic in flavor but entirely bardic at heart. Doyle's sleights of hand, word, and reality burr up off the page the way bits of heather burr out of a handmade Irish sweater yet the same sweater is stained indigenous orange by a thousand Netarts Bay salmonberries. I've read no Northwest novel remotely like it and enjoyed few novels more. Of an Irishman's Oregon I am nothing but glad to have wandered, Mink River sings and sings."
"Review"
by Molly Gloss, author of The Hearts of Horses and The Jump-Off Creek,
"Absolutely in the tradition of Northwest literature, richly imagined, distinctive, beautiful... I was pulled along steadily, my heart raced, I held my breath..."
"Review"
by Library Journal,
"Doyle writes with an inventive and seductive style that echoes that of ancient storytellers. This lyrical mix of natural history, poetry, and Salish and Celtic lore offers crime, heartaches, celebrations, healing, and death....Enthusiastically recommended."
"Review"
by Oregonian,
"The greatest gift of Mink River is that it provides every reason in the world to see your own village, neighborhood and life in a deeper, more nuanced and connected way."
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
The story of the small Oregon coast town of Neawanaka and its people.
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