This is an extended dream of a novel, set in an Our Town that lies midway between Spoon River and Brigadoon â a place of mist and rains and tides, where animals talk and humans struggle to find that spot between surviving and truly living.
Set in a tiny coastal Oregon village, the plot (such as it is) meanders about following various inhabitants as they work and love and think about the future. The main family is that of Worried Man and his wife, Maple Head, their daughter No Horses, her husband Owen, and their son Daniel. Worried Man, aided and abetted by his friend Cedar, run the Public Works department under a vague mission statement that seems to involve doing whatever they think would be a good idea for the town. The magical-realism tale unspools in multiple languages â English, Gaelic, Italian, Salish, Latin, and Bear, and Doyle brings the landscape to breathing, pulsating life on every page.
Don't think about it too hard. Just enjoy. As the crow says, âstories are not only words. Words are just the clothes people drape on stories.â And a magical drapery it is.
Set in a tiny coastal Oregon village, the plot (such as it is) meanders about following various inhabitants as they work and love and think about the future. The main family is that of Worried Man and his wife, Maple Head, their daughter No Horses, her husband Owen, and their son Daniel. Worried Man, aided and abetted by his friend Cedar, run the Public Works department under a vague mission statement that seems to involve doing whatever they think would be a good idea for the town. The magical-realism tale unspools in multiple languages â English, Gaelic, Italian, Salish, Latin, and Bear, and Doyle brings the landscape to breathing, pulsating life on every page.
Don't think about it too hard. Just enjoy. As the crow says, âstories are not only words. Words are just the clothes people drape on stories.â And a magical drapery it is.
I have such mixed feelings about this book. On the plus side, the writing is beautiful, and the characters and their stories are at times brilliant. And there is a talking crow. However, this book was very difficult to read. There are so many characters, several who are referred to by multiple names, that it is confusing. I had to mark a chart to keep track of who everyone is and what their relationships are.
The author is a poet and although some descriptions of the natural world are stunning, at times the prose reads more like a poem with long lists of things. There are no quotation marks used, and the short chapters jump between characters and storylines. According to the reviews, many people loved this book so maybe the problem is that I am feeble-minded.
The author is a poet and although some descriptions of the natural world are stunning, at times the prose reads more like a poem with long lists of things. There are no quotation marks used, and the short chapters jump between characters and storylines. According to the reviews, many people loved this book so maybe the problem is that I am feeble-minded.
Superb; thought-provoking, like nothing you've read before, it's a tsunami told in slow-lapping water waves of the mind.
Loved this book, partly because I live near the area where the book takes place, along the Oregon coast. Different style of writing, some might not like it but I find it quite lyrical with keen observation into nature and humanity.
