“From the folds of her skirt she brought out a dull green change purse.  How much?

He told her. She pinched out the correct change and handed it to him.

As he filled the sack with fruit, the woman turned and gazed behind her.  Said: Look what the cat drug in.  Those two looking over here like that, you aren’t careful, they’ll come rob you.  Hooligan-looking. She sniffed.

After a moment he looked where she nodded.  Down the street, under the awning of the hardware store, two girls— raggedy, smudge-faced— stood conspiratorially, half turned toward each other.  When they saw Talmadge and the woman observing them, they turned their backs to them.  He handed the burlap sack to the woman, the bottom heavy and misshapen with fruit.”

Book Review:

Review by Betsey Van Horn  (DEC 22, 2013)

In this understated and emotionally raw novel of a family born as much from choice as from blood, debut novelist Amanda Coplin explores themes of love, loyalty, courage, compassion, revenge, and honor, as well as the lifelong, traumatic impact of both childhood abuse and loss.

The novel opens with orchardist William Talmadge, a tall, broad-shouldered and solitary man who is composed of the most steadfast moral fiber and potent vulnerability of almost any protagonist that I can recall in recent (new/contemporary) literature. After his father died in the silver mines of the Oregon Territory when Talmadge was nine, he came to this fertile valley at the foothills of the Cascade Mountains (Washington State) in 1857 with his mother and sister. Within the next eight years, he suffered from smallpox, his mother died of illness, and his sister later disappeared in the forest, never to return. This is Talmadge’s story, and the saga of his chosen family, borne from the blood of loss and abuse.

Two young pregnant teenagers, Della and Jane, enter Talmadge’s life in his middle-aged years. They steal fruit from him at market, where he sells the apricots, apples, and plums from his sweeping acreage of crops. A bit of a touch and go, cat and mouse game ensues, as they follow him home, hide, and emerge when they are hungry, only to scamper and scatter away again, staying close to the edges of his property. Talmadge gradually gains, if not Della and Jane’s trust (they have a harrowing history of ritual abuse), then a tentative acceptance, and they become inhabitants of the orchard, living alongside Talmadge. He becomes their loyal benefactor.

If I give any more of the plot progression, it will proceed into spoiler territory. The story bears its fruit gradually, almost meditatively, during the first two sections (135 or so pages). There are eight sections in all, but some are long and pensive, and some short, at times just a few pages. The middle sections compress the years into thumbnail sketches without losing its stirring effect on the reader. The story is told in a quiet and nearly oblique manner, yet without being detached. The overall effect is powerful, and it rumbles fiercely, and menacingly, at intervals, without open sentimentality. The characters evolve delicately, with contemplative subtlety.

“Through glances she had caught various features—his nose, the set of his shoulders, the striking color of his eyes. But he had one of those complicated faces that one had to consider at length to understand how emotion lay on it, to understand it at all. It was like a landscape: that wide and complicated, many-layered expanse.”

The land is essential to the story—the planting of seeds, the cultivation, and the harvest. The orchard is Talmadge’s lifeblood, and a ripe motif for the burgeoning love he has for the family that has germinated from the edges of his vast plantation. Nature and nurture merge, and the repository of grief yokes to the deep basin of humanity and from there, the kernels of love grow and reproduce.

At times, as I reflect on the ending, I am troubled by the author’s choices, but so goes the cycle of life in its order and perplexity.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 675 readers
PUBLISHER:	Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (March 5, 2013)
REVIEWER:	Betsey Van Horn
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Amanda Coplin
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Another orchard book … The Orchard by Larry Watson

Bibliography:

• The Orchardist (2012)

“We are haunted by otherness, by the path not taken, by the life unlived. We are haunted by the changing winds and the ebbing tides of history. ”

Book Review:

Review by Poornima Apte  (FEB 16, 2011)

Visit the website for the National Park Service and you will find that the Elwha River Restoration project is a key one for the Olympic National Park in Washington state. “Elwha River Restoration will restore the river to its natural free-flowing state, allowing all five species of Pacific salmon and other anadromous fish to once again reach habitat and spawning grounds,” the project literature explains.

It is with this kernel of truth that writer Jonathan Evison spins a grand tale in his new novel, West of Here. The novel essentially looks at environmental decisions made during the late 1800s, when the American frontier moved rapidly west, and land grabs were in full swing—and the consequences of those same decisions more than a hundred years on.

Arguably the central protagonist in the novel—one populated by dozens of characters—is Ethan Thornburgh who envisions a dam across the mighty Elwha to harness its energy. “We’ll transform this place, for a hundred miles in every direction. Our dam will be a force of nature.” Thornburgh predicts.

In a twisted way, Thornburgh’s prediction comes true—the dam certainly “transforms” Port Bonita, the fictional town on the river’s banks, but not in the way that Thornburgh intended.

Fast forward to 2006, and Port Bonitans are struggling. Fishing, once a thriving business in town, is no longer a viable industry—the dam has seen to that. The town’s commercial fish processing plants serially shut down and only one lonely one is left to go on. Nevertheless Port Bonitans remain hopeful as they celebrate their heritage and look forward to the dam becoming a thing of the past soon. A poster around town perhaps says it best:

“Dam Days, September 2-3
Come celebrate over 100 years of Port Bonita history!
Featuring Live Music, Logging Competition, Chainsaw Carving Contest, and World-Famous Salmon Bake
Proudly presented in part by your neighbors at Wal-Mart.

It is at this “Dam Days” event that Jared Thornburgh, the manager of the fish processing plant, is expected to give the keynote speech. Jared, a descendant of the ambitious Ethan Thornburgh, has none of his predecessor’s fire. Instead his life is in mid-life stasis, consumed wholly by everyday trivialities. Forever bogged down by the weight of history, Jared worries he never quite measures up to the family name. “He forever lived in the shadow of this obsolete dam, his fortune linked inextricably to its hulking existence, its legacy of ecological menace,” Evison writes.

The novel moves back and forth between two times—the relatively recent present set in 2006 and the past set in 1890. A whole assorted set of characters populates each time period. Evison tries hard—sometimes too hard—to create characters in 2006 that are analogous to ones in the past. So it is that there’s an ex-convict Timmon Tillman who traces the same treacherous path along the Olympic National Park, that James Mather, an adventurous pioneer once did.

Native Americans, especially members of the Klallam tribe, also populate these pages as they too try to adapt to a changing landscape.

Evison traverses a lot of ground in this hefty novel and given its length it is remarkably well edited. The problem with West of Here is that it ultimately can’t move beyond its cast of characters to look at the wider picture and explore complexities. Evison loses the forest for the trees. As the book winds down, the “happily ever after” ending seems pat especially given the interesting complexities each of the characters started out with. It’s almost as if Evison finally ran out of steam and decided to wrap it all up with a neat bow. Notwithstanding this, West of Here truly transports the reader and lovers of a meaty story will really take to the novel.

In his “Dam Days” address, Jared Thornburgh echoes the words of his predecessor when he describes Port Bonita as “not an address, after all, not even a place, but a spirit, an essence, a pulse—a future still unfolding.”   For all the pep talk, Jared Thornburgh might be papering over the truth. After all, one might wonder, what kind of future does it portend when the only two times that someone from Port Bonita actually managed a modicum of success, was when each broke free?

As the residents of Port Bonita learn, some essential truths remain unchanged over centuries. “Can we really be whoever we want to be, now that we’ve collected all that we are?” asks one of the characters in the novel. The answer to that essential question is “Maybe.” Which, as it turns out, is still the same answer in 2006 as it was in 1890. Nevertheless, that answer carries with it some measure of hope—and that just might be enough for the hearty Port Bonitans.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 92 readers
PUBLISHER:	Algonquin Books (February 15, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Poornima Apte
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Jonathan Evison
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	More novels set in the Pacific Northwest: The Wilding by Benjamin Percy The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch

Bibliography:

• All About Lulu (2008)
• West Of Here (2011)
• The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving (August 2012)