Baby Got Books

West of Here

The imposing presence of Mt Olympus features prominently in Jonathan Evison’s new novel West of Here. It isn’t a story of the Olympus of Greek mythology. West of Here is an epic American story of the all too human adventures of the residents within the shadow of the famed mountain on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula.

The novel begins at a current day celebration of “Dam Days” in the fictional town of Port Bonita, Washington. The imposing hydroelectric dam carved out of a mountain ravine is a symbol of the area’s progress and its hubris. Unknown to the assembled crowd, the pillar of civic pride is scheduled to come down after over a hundred years of service. In addition to safety concerns about the stability of its pioneer-days construction, the dam also must give way for river restoration efforts to rehabilitate the vanishing local salmon stocks.

The story then veers back to the days leading up to Washington’s statehood. The interior of the Olympic Peninsula is one of the last unexplored areas of the continent, and it is still an open question which city in the Pacific Northwest will become the economic leader of the region. The opportunities attract explorers, laborers, entrepreneurs, and free thinkers who are all banking on the promise of undiscovered country.

The story alternates between the past and the present, striking contrasts between the founders and their moribund descendants. While the original Port Bonitans sacrifice mightily for the possibility of building a better life, their kin descend into inescapable ruts, their own vision stifled by the end of westward migration, the taming of the land diminishing their own capacity for wilderness.

In one scene, Timmon Tillman, recently released from prison, decides to set off for a Walt Whitman-inspired break from his fellow man into the relative wilderness surrounding Mt Olympus:

Where to begin his new life? Onward! Onward through the broad-shouldered foothills and into treeless high-country and over the divide until Timmon Tillman ceased to exist, until the past and future ceased to exist and all that remained was the difference between life and death. By late afternoon he was exhausted. A blister had formed on his heel.

Tillman’s disappearance into a “wilderness” of worn hiking trails is further compromised by his trail of discarded Snickers wrappers, but even in this degraded Eden, basic survival cannot be taken for granted. The fragility of man in the face of a harsh and unforgiving environment is a theme that runs throughout the novel.

The chapters that explore the founding history of Port Bonita are the strongest. Evison doesn’t overly romanticize the settlers’ lives. The early pioneers, courageous settlers carving a life out of the wilderness, are also harsh racists with grim views of the local Native Americans and Chinese laborers. The twenty first century reader can’t miss their myopia when a local newspaperman dismisses a reporter’s conservation article as irrelevant as the region clearly has an over-abundance of everything that they will ever need.

Like its setting, West of Here gives its characters room to spread out and breath. The epic scope is ambitious, but the skilled story teller never loses his way. Port Bonita’s transformation from a lush idyll to a strip mall anytown is heartbreaking, but the removal of its dam holds the promise of the return of the town’s former glory and new beginning for its residents.

The novel is also gorgeous. The publisher, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, have outdone themselves with the stunning design of this novel. I’ll make it simple: if you buy this book on a Kindle, you lose.

Bonus: The Georgia Center for the Book presents Jonathan Evison who will be discussing West of Here tomorrow night, March 10th, 7PM, at the First Baptist church in Decatur. The event is FREE. I can’t wait to check it out.

Also: f you’ve found your way here via the Decatur Book Festival newsletter, welcome! Please, stay a while and look around. If you’re not currently receiving the Decatur Book Festival’s e-mail newsletter, what are you waiting for! Sign up here, and select the AJC DBF newsletter. That’s it!

Books, Fiction, Review | Tim | March 9, 2011 9:10 am

6 Comments

By Katie, March 9, 2011 @ 11:51 am

I was not a fan of this book, even though it was everything I could hope for: a historical novel set in Washington State (where I live)! Unfortunately, I could barely even make it through the beginning, and I gave up. Now I’m reading The Living by Annie Dillard, which also takes place here in the 1800s, and it’s SO much better.
By Anne, March 9, 2011 @ 2:08 pm

I thought I wanted to check this one out, but Katie, maybe I don’t. I like most things about the Pacific NW, where I’m from, but maybe I’ll check out The Living. Thanks for the suggestion!
By Tim, March 9, 2011 @ 3:22 pm

I’m a big fan of Evison’s writing (check out my review of his previous novel here: http://goo.gl/NXoNd). I was yanked into this one pretty quickly, I read large chunks at a time and would have to decide that enough was enough for one day to get some sleep.
By Book Witch, March 9, 2011 @ 8:14 pm

Thanks – this sounds like a great book. I’ll have to check it out.