Legends of the North Cascades A novel

Jonathan Evison

Book - 2021

"After his wife's death, a man brings his young daughter to live in a cave he has found in the Cascade mountains. Once there, his daughter begins to sense the presence of other people in the cave, a mother and son who retreated there during the last ice age in an effort to survive"--

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Subjects
Genres
Historical fiction
Mystery fiction
Detective and mystery fiction
Paranormal fiction
Published
Chapel Hill, North Carolina : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 2021.
Language
English
Main Author
Jonathan Evison (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
342 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN
9781643750101
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Evison's (Lawn Boy, 2018) majestic and panoramic latest conjures the beauty, power, and unforgiving nature of the Cascade Mountains in alternating narratives separated by thousands of years. Former marine and Iraq War vet Dave Cartwright has had trouble assimilating back into society. The once promising high-school football star was passed over for college scholarships and viewed the marines as his best hope. After three tours, however, Dave is bitter and resentful, haunted by the horrors he has witnessed and the actions he and his fellow soldiers were ordered to take. Dave's PTSD has caused an irreparable rift in his marriage, and when his wife dies in a car accident, Dave is left to raise their seven-year-old daughter, Bella, alone. Evison brilliantly crafts Dave's acute psychological struggle as he decides to drop out of society and raise Bella in a cave high up in the mountains. Soon, Bella begins to channel the spirit of a young mother, S'tka, who lived there at the end of the last ice age. These twin narratives provide parallel themes of survival and resilience in treacherous environs. Evison masterfully delivers subtle yet pointed commentary on how society marginalizes veterans and how we profess to admire yet distrust the individualist ethos while also offering a profound meditation on the human spirit.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Evison (Lawn Boy) delivers an intimate if uneven story of grief and parenthood with characters from two distant millennia. After onetime football hero Dave Cartwright returns to Vigilante Falls, Wash., from his third and worst tour in Iraq with the Marines, he struggles to reacquaint himself with civic and domestic life. The sudden death of his wife, Nadene, makes Dave ever more disillusioned, prompting him to uproot his seven-year-old daughter, Bella, to a cave in the Cascades. As days stretch to weeks and months and winter closes in, Bella starts having visions of the Paleolithic people who once populated the area. Chapters about an Ice Age mother and child alternate with Dave and Bella's increasingly perilous situation and with gossip about Dave conveyed through interstitial monologues from various folks back home. The parallel narratives of familial trust and parent-child conflicts among the ancient people and between Dave and Bella develop effectively in tandem, though the idea of some kind of psychic connection between this young girl and her Ice Age predecessors feels strained. Moreover, Evison's judgmental modern-day townspeople are unbelievably openhearted and endlessly forgiving, even after Dave's actions endanger Bella and others. Despite its faults, Evison's empathetic vision offers much to consider about the limits of parental authority and the capacity for both physical and emotional survival. (June)

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Review by Library Journal Review

This surprisingly engaging book from Evison (All About Lulu) focuses on two parallel story tracks. In the present, Dave is living in rural Whatcom County, WA, struggling to adjust after three tours of duty in Iraq and the resulting negative effects on his marriage and family. After his wife is killed in a traffic accident, Dave decides to head for the hills, taking with him his eight-year-old daughter Bella, and making a home for them in a cave in the Cascades. The narrative then branches into a separate story line, as dreamed by Bella, about a girl named St'ka who lives thousands of years in the past, during the Ice Age. Pregnant St'ka, with one male companion, leaves the main band of her people, to inhabit the very same cave Bella and Dave now live in. As Bella and Dave's story winds its way to a logical conclusion, with visits from concerned relatives and child protective services, St'ka's story evolves in tandem. VERDICT This modern back-to-the-land story feels like John Krakauer's Into the Wild meets Jean M. Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear, a combination that makes for a compelling read in its appreciation of the monumental properties of nature and recognition of the history of humans in the North Cascades.--Henry Bankhead, San Rafael P.L., CA

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