: Snow Falling On Cedars and East Of The Mountains
Barbara Durlacher recommends two novels by the American novelist David Guterson, both of them set in the North West of the USA.
These two excellent books, by the undervalued author David Guterson, tell American stories with a sensitivity and delicate understanding of character and place that immediately puts the reader firmly in the scene.
‘Snow Falling on Cedars’ centres around the murder trial of Kabuo Miyamoto, head of an immigrant Japanese family struggling to make a life in the strawberry fields on San Piedro island, Washington State. Arriving in the country as labourers in the timber mills and schooner hands on sailing ships, the first Japanese immigrants were gradually assimilated into the local economy and became respected members of the community, until the attack on Pearl Harbour led to their internment.
The novel is part love story, part murder mystery and wholly believable, with the careful solving of the riddle of the murder and the presentation of the circumstances unravelled with great ingenuity by a reporter on the local newspaper. This takes place against the background of a tremendous snowstorm, the reporter’s continuing anguish at the loss of his boy-hood love and the hostility of the locals.
An excellent tale, told by a master storyteller – one I can definitely recommend.
In Guterson’s later book, “East of the Mountains” we see another aspect of his talent as a storyteller. Here he tackles a theme which, in less-skilled hands, would be off-putting, crass and crude, but which he perceptively explores with great sensitivity and understanding.
The story covers the events of only 24 hours, and draws a picture of a sensitive older man, a doctor, dying of cancer. He is determined not to linger on in agony, but to end his life at a time and place of his own choosing. But before he decides when that will be, he undertakes one final bird shoot ‘east of the mountains’ with his two Brittany hunting dogs. As he travels the distance from his Seattle home across the mountain divide to the apple farming area where he grew up, his mind returns to his boyhood and the events leading up to his marriage. Later events test his courage and endurance way beyond what he thought he could endure, but at the end of it all, he returns to the comfort of his home, reconciled to what the future will bring and at peace with himself and the illness.
Although the theme of old age, increasing fragility and death may seem off-putting to many, this is a book I urge you to explore as it ends with a spirit of acceptance and peace which is rarely found in today’s writing.
