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Fiction. Literature. In a small fictional town on the Oregon coast there are love affairs and almost-love-affairs, mystery and hilarity, bears and tears, brawls and boats, a garrulous logger and a silent doctor, rain and pain, Irish immigrants and Salish stories, mud and laughter. There's a Department of Public Works that gives haircuts and counts insects, a policeman who is addicted to Puccini, a philosophizing crow, beer, and berries. An expedition is mounted, a crime is committed, and there's an unbelievably huge picnic on the football field. Babies are born. A car is cut in half with a saw. A river confesses what it's thinking . . . This is the tale of a town, written in a distinct and lyrical voice, and when the book ends, listeners will be more than a little sad to leave the village of Neawanaka, on the wet coast of Oregon, beneath the hills that used to boast the biggest trees in the history of the world.… (more)
User reviews
My favorite character was a talking, philosophical crow named Moses. There was also the questing Worried Man, the protective Cedar, the wise Maple Head, the talented No Horses, the inventive Owen, and the kind Daniel. There were many more characters and each was quite charming.
Doyle's foray into fiction is not
There's something quintessentially Northwest about this book, there's the faint scent of Robbins, a sprinkle of Kesey, more than a smattering of the First Nations mythmakers, a spritz of Holbrook, a seasoning of Carver- but it's all infused with the mysterious aching Irishness of Doyle and the love he has for language and humanity and this land upon which I live. I don't mean to say it's at all derivative, because it is not. Not a bit. But it partakes deeply and fully of Place, and as such it rings echoes of those other great books that have come before.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
And then there's Moses, a crow with a voice. And Declan, who hates farming so much that he shoots his cows and then invites everyone in town to a gigantic BBQ.
And the woods, and the water, and Mount Hood. And plenty of magical realism. And lots of magical writing.
Mink River has been coming up on various "you'd like this" lists for awhile, and I enjoy his column in The
What I loved:
* Characters. They are wonderful, deep, human, special. Magic.
* Moses. An off-shoot of "Characters," but worth it's own asterisk. I love Moses. I want to know Moses.
* Irish stories. Native American stories. Cuchulainn, my favorite literary hero has a place in this book.
* A healthy dose of magical realism.
* Spirituality, as seen through flawed souls.
* Lyricism. This is lyrical prose. It's poetic prose. It's prosely poetics. Okay. It's just lovely. I had to read some passages aloud to fully taste the loveliness. My husband was frequently treated to "Hey, listen to this paragraph!".
*Gentle and powerful.
This isn't a book to power through. It merits listening. Some complain that it's got strings of nouns, adjectives, whatever.... but the thing is, that's a chunk of the point. Life, beauty, nature, societies - we're all a collection of things and sights and sounds, and those things together build a world. Doyle's world is full and magic and, to me, oh, so real.
Sometimes, once in a great while, a book comes along that I just don't want to end. I begin reading slower, and slower, feeling the end draw near, and I just don't want it to happen. Mink River was one of those books.
I look forward to his next novel. I'll be checking out some of his short story collections in the meantime
This book is like 40 year old scotch, made for sipping slowly and savoring, by the fire on a rainy night.
Mink River is the story of a small Oregon town and
Brian Doyle gives voice to Oregon’s coast in the same way Kent Haruf gives voice to the plains. Speakers and thoughts need no quote markers. Words in memory are every bit as real as those said out loud. And words of river or bird have just as much importance as those of a dying man or a wounded child.
Thought provoking, inspiring, haunting, hopeful, honest yet filled with delight, Mink River reads like a song, like houses and trees, like past and present, plant and water, vineyard wine and the ocean rolled into one. I really enjoyed it.
Disclosure: I’d long planned to read a book by this author, and started this the day he died. He will be missed.
It perfectly evokes and encapsulates the Pacific Northwest: the cycle of nature, the trees, the ocean, the fish and birds, the Native American folklore that infuses the landscape, the brief giddy summer.
Doyle's writing is delightful. He manages to weave together a lot
The book explores a lot of themes: the importance of storytelling, the similarities and contrasts between Native and immigrant families, the quest to enjoy life, our relationship to nature and to time. It has characters in every stage of life, from birth to adolescence to mid-life crisis to old age to death, and does justice to them all.
This one is worth re-reading every few years.
I listened to the audiobook. It was a little tough to keep all the characters straight when I couldn't flip back to jog my memory, but the narrator did an excellent job.
Set in a tiny coastal Oregon village, the plot (such as it
Don’t think about it too hard. Just enjoy. As the crow says, “stories are not only words. Words are just the clothes people drape on stories.” And a magical drapery it is.