Call number
Collection
Genres
Publication
Description
Fiction. Literature. HTML: ā??A beautifully rendered and cinematic portrait of a place and its evolution through time . . . A story of survival and the love and devotion between parent and child.ā? ā??Jill McCorkle, author of Hieroglyphics Dave Cartwright used to be good at a lot of things: good with his hands, good at solving problems, good at staying calm in a crisis. But on the heels of his third tour in Iraq, the fabric of Daveā??s life has begun to unravel. Gripped by PTSD, he finds himself losing his home, his wife, his direction. Most days, his love for his seven-year-old daughter, Bella, is the only thing keeping him going. When tragedy strikes, Dave makes a dramatic decision: the two of them will flee their damaged lives, heading off the grid to live in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. As they carve out a home in a cave in that harsh, breathtaking landscape, echoes of its past begin to reach them. Bella retreats into herself, absorbed by visions of a mother and son who lived in the cave thousands of years earlier, at the end of the last ice age. Back in town, Dave and Bella themselves are rapidly becoming the stuff of legendā??to all but those who would force them to return home. As winter sweeps toward the North Cascades, past and present intertwine into a timeless odyssey. Poignant and profound, Legends of the North Cascades brings Jonathan Evisonā??s trademark vibrant, honest voice to bear on an expansive story that is at once a meditation on the perils of isolation and an exploration of the ways that connection… (more)
User reviews
A provocative and strange thread of narrative belongs to Sātka, a woman living in the North Cascades at the end of the last ice age. Evison weaves her struggles to survive in the barren and treacherous wilderness with Dave and Bellaās endeavors to live outside of accepted norms. I found parts of this book laborious--too much dialogue between Dave and Bella that felt forced and unrealistic, too much rote, interior angst and sometimes it seemed Evison was a bit entangled in his structure. Yet his portrayal of Daveās increasing loss of reality and control interspersed with glances of his time in the marines was powerful and moving. The sections about Sātka and her son felt real and an interesting parallel to Dave and Bella. All in all, for all of its issues, Legends of the North Cascades will stay with me as a poignant work of man vs. the wilderness, family, and mental health.