Hardcover edition with dust jacket in fine condition.
 | | | | Additional Information about East of the Mountains
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| Synopsis | A widowed surgeon with a terminal illness takes a trip through the American West, intending to end his life. Instead, he finds himself, improbably, in the midst of a full-fledged identity crisis.
| | Size | | Length: | 279 pages | | Height: | 9.3 in. | | Width: | 6.3 in. | | Thickness: | 1.2 in. | | Weight: | 19.2 oz. |
| | Publisher's Note | From the author of the prize-winning "Snow Falling on Cedars" comes a novel of America. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, a recently widowed, retired heart surgeon, accompanied by his two dogs, sets out on a journey through the mythic West--sage deserts, yawning canyons, dusty ranches, and vast orchards--on his last hunt.
It is mid-October, 1997, harvest time in the Columbia Basin of central Washington state, a rich apple- and pear-growing region. Ben Givens, recently widowed, is a retired heart surgeon, once admired for his steadiness of hand, his precision, his endurance. He has terminal colon cancer. While Ben does not readily accept defeat, he is determined to avoid suffering rather than engage it. And so, accompanied by his two hunting dogs, he sets out through the mythic American West-sage deserts, yawning canyons, dusty ranches, vast orchards-on his last hunt. The main issues for Ben as a doctor had been tactical and so it would be with his death. But he hadn't considered the persuasiveness of memory-the promise he made to his wife Rachel, the love of his life, during World War II. Or life's mystery. On his journey he meets a young couple who are "forever," a drifter offering left-handed advice that might lessen the pain, a veterinarian with a touch only a heart surgeon would recognize, a rancher bent on destruction, a migrant worker who tests Ben's ability to understand. And just when he thinks there is no turning back, nothing to lose that wasn't lost, his power of intervention is called upon and his very identity tested. Full of humanity, passion, and moral honesty, East of the Mountains is a bold and beautiful novel of personal discovery.
| | Industry reviews | "The many admirers of Guterson's 'Snow Falling on Cedars' won't be disappointed by this affecting, often superbly lyrical account....Thinly imagined but quite beautifully written..."
Miller
"As Guterson tells this meditative and autumnal story, he shows once again that he has a naturalist's eye for botanical detail. But he is better at evoking plants and trees than at filling out his characters. He works hard to invest Givens' ultimate decision with inevitability, but he never quite pulls it off, because the emotional arc of his hero's life keeps disappearing into reverential descriptions of the landscape."
Harayda
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