Reading Seattle: The City in Prose

by Peter Donahue, John Trombold

Seattle, with its spectacular natural beauty and rough frontier history, has inspired writers from its earliest days. This anthology spans seven decades and includes fiction, memoirs, histories, and journalism that define the city or use it as a setting, imparting the flavor of the city through a literary prism.

Reading Seattle features classics by Horace R. Cayton, Richard Hugo, Betty MacDonald, Mary McCarthy, Murray Morgan, and John Okada as well as more recent works by Sherman Alexie, Lynda Barry, David Guterson, J. A. Jance, Jonathan Raban, and others. It includes cutting-edge work by emerging talents and reintroduces works by important Seattle writers who may have been overlooked in recent years.

The writers featured in this volume explore a variety of neighborhoods and districts within the city, delineating urban spaces and painting memorable portraits of characters both historical and fictional.

Genres: Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2004

Reviews

[Andy Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

An anthology of selected readings about Seattle, most were excerpts from books or longer stories. A truly diverse selection which meant that were some that I did not especially like but these were outweighed by those I did. While I enjoyed the selections from some of the "famous" writers such as Mary McCarthy, David Guterson, and Sherman Alexie, my favorites were from writers I had not read. In fact, I'm ordering books by Michael Byers and Matt Briggs

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of short non-fiction and fiction set in Seattle. I picked it up from the library because it contained a piece by Jonathan Raban, who recently passed away, and I enjoyed that piece and also the collection as a whole. Like many short story collection, it can be uneven, but it also was an excellent example of how a single place (Seattle) can have so many diverse voices.

The piece by Raban was a memoir of his first days in Seattle, being drawn there like many others in the 80s and acting as a gentrifying force by trying to find an inexpensive place to live, and forcing out other low income residents.
Another piece by David Shields made me laugh in its depiction of PNW drivers passive-agressive deference to pedestrians, which is much in contrast to drivers in Texas.
There was an amusing excerpt from Tom Robbins Still Life with Woodpecker that proposed using the exuberant and untameable growth of blackberry bushes to create a whole power ecosystem that would be unstoppable.

There were also pieces with diverse viewpoints, such as that of Japanese during WWII, who were forced out of their Seattle homes, indigenous peoples, and an account of a black surgeon who used a white middleman to hide the fact that he was buying a house in a 'white' neighborhood in the 60s.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a really nice selection of Seattle pieces, and it made me want to read almost every single one of the works they excerpted from. I kind of wish I'd had it when I first moved here. There's also a really useful introduction and bibliography with lots of suggestions for reading beyond what the editors could include in a reasonably-sized book.

[Carmen like the opera · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading about my hometown!

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice to see these differing predecessors of writing in Seattle. Now I just have to go and read all the books these excerpts actually came from!

[Jenni Pertuset]

Why: I spotted it when Kristyna added it to her shelf.

[Mark Magee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical, philosophical, geographical, cultural vignettes that speak to Seattle's richness.