West of Here in fiction files redux

May 29, 2010 Dan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literature, z-2011-reads, re-read, z-2010-reads

I picked up an ARC of West of Here at this year's BEA and I am glad I got a chance to read it as early as I did. This book is a sweeping epic, it's as if Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion and Eugenides' Middlesex had a love child. While reading you can actually feel the Olympic Peninsula all around you just as you could feel Oregon's coastal forests in Kesey's great book.

West of Here is like a freight train, it starts off at a steady pace allowing you to become familiar with its broad cast of ch ...more

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Mar 17, 2010 Patty rated it it was amazing

For a novel about conquering the frontier, West of Here is refreshingly free of frontier wisdom. In fact it's also wonderfully free of platitudes of any kind, which is incredibly rare in a novel of it's scope.

As someone familiar with the area in which the story takes place, I was impressed by how well Evison captured the landscape, and also how he captured the general mood of contemporary small town Washington state.

The stories in the book are entertaining, compelling, and compassionate. Aside ...more

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Apr 09, 2010 Maureen rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2011

i've been thinking about reading and what makes it special. i love it most of all because of i love words, and taking them in, and how they're arranged because they speak to me very clearly when i take them in through my eyes. i absorb them and they speak through the writer into my own experience, and desire, my fear, and my hope.

in west of here, jonathan evison tells many stories, woven together to comprise a town in tapestry, not limited to one set of people, or time. it is an ambitious book ...more

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Mar 17, 2010 Christopher Swann rated it it was amazing

West of Here sticks with you for a while. That might not seem odd, given the size of the novel (nearly 500 pages). But it doesn't read like a big novel, not in the sense that you have to wade through several hundred pages. It certainly feels like a big novel, and how could it not? Two timelines a century apart, multiple characters, multiple plots and subplots including a wilderness expedition, building (and later un-building) a dam, a parole officer searching for his newest parolee, doomed roman ...more

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Mar 07, 2011 Charlaralotte rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2011

I loved this book. Read it in two days flat. Even woke up during the night to keep going. Very few authors can pull off intricately structured novels that weave back and forth between multiple characters and moments in history. Evison manages to do it, and the result is a tour de force: the strong and sweeping storytelling of a masterful omniscient voice similar to Sir Walter Scott or Dickens. Right up there with today's big guns Franzen and Lethem, or perhaps more Maureen Howard and Louis de Be ...more

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Mar 17, 2010 Kerry Dunn rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2010

I was lucky enough to score an ARC of Jonathan Evison’s West of Here and I have to admit that it surprised me. I knew the man could write, his first novel All About Lulu was a lovely coming of age story told with a unique voice that I liked a lot. But Lulu in no way prepared me for the staggering scope of West of Here.

Set in the fictional town of Port Bonita, Washington, the book follows two timelines. The first timeline begins in 1889 and focuses on Port Bonita's founding and the damming of th I was lucky enough to score an ARC of Jonathan Evison’s West of Here and I have to admit that it surprised me. I knew the man could write, his first novel All About Lulu was a lovely coming of age story told with a unique voice that I liked a lot. But Lulu in no way prepared me for the staggering scope of West of Here.

Set in the fictional town of Port Bonita, Washington, the book follows two timelines. The first timeline begins in 1889 and focuses on Port Bonita's founding and the damming of the Elwha River which gave the town its identity and life. This timeline is filled with men and women of vision and purpose, the world wide open to them if only they can make the right decisions. The second timeline is in the modern year 2006 and follows the descendants of those original founders. But for them, Port Bonita is no longer thriving, the dam no longer their salvation but their downfall. These men and women would like to have the same sense of purpose their ancestors did, but first they must somehow reconcile their past with their future. It might be time for Port Bonita and its inhabitants to make a change.

Jonathan Evison writes colorfully with a lot of humor and genuine affection for his many characters – not one written with anything less than absolute vibrancy and depth. The Washington wilderness itself is a character and his descriptions of it are so effortless and beautiful, you trust that he KNOWS this landscape. He makes you feel it.

The story itself is propulsive. At the beginning you will slowly begin to know the characters and follow them on their paths, learning more and more about them as you turn the pages, then the plot will start to take a strong hold and pretty soon you will be unable to put the book down until you find out what everyone’s destinies will be, until you are finished with the book and sad that it’s over.

I am intrigued by the amount of research that went into the writing of this novel. What is factual and what is imagination? I want to look into the history of the area myself and learn everything I can about it. It’s that pioneer spirit and sense of adventure that captures my attention and imbues in me a childlike sense of wonder at the vastness of things.

So, thanks to Jonathan Evison for writing such a spectacular book. I think this novel is going to be big for him. I’ll definitely be buying at least one copy when it is officially released and I encourage you to do so too.
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Nov 10, 2010 Brian rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-2011

From the first page to the last, I was there. Jonathan's voice took me on a hike through the Washington wilderness along snowy mountain peaks in the dead of winter in the 1890's and I drove past a Taco Bell and Walmart in 2006 in a Monte Carlo sitting next to Rita. I still feel the cold and smell of Merit second-hand smoke.

The structure of this book was thoughtfully and brilliantly created. Jumping from the 1890's to 2006 was not as harsh or distracting as I first thought it might be... especial ...more

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Oct 18, 2010 Patrick is currently reading it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 06, 2011 Micha rated it it was amazing

Shelves: books-2011, favorites, the-cartographer-s-apprentice

I recommend this to: those who love an adventure! Anyone interested in community building, envirnonmental novels, novels about exploration or discovery!

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