Ursula Pflug's Blog - Posts Tagged "guernica"

Mountain by Ursula Pflug

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


My near-future YA novella Mountain received lovely reviews in Tangent, Cascadia Subduction Zone, The Future Fire and the Ottawa Review of Books among other places. I will see if I can cobble together a few of the links. I've also just posted my son Edward Back's beautiful video here.

Victoria Silverwolf writes:

The narrator is a teenage girl, the daughter of divorced parents. Her father, who does not appear until the end, is a successful musician. With him, she leads a life of credit cards and shopping malls. Her mother travels to communal gatherings, where she uses her technical skills to help those who live there survive off the land with do-it-yourself technology. During one such excursion, she leaves her daughter behind, promising to return in a few days. While the daughter waits, she becomes friends with a boy who has secrets, which remain unrevealed until halfway through the novella. She also records the stories of other young people who have come to the gathering. (These narrations incorporate writings that the author published previously.) Some of these stories are realistic, while others are fantasy. At the end, the narrator finds out what happened to her mother, and matures from adolescence to adulthood.

Read more
here.

Ian Thomas Shaw wrote about Mountain in ORB, the Ottawa Review of Books. His second novel, Quill of the Dove was recently released by Guernica.

The beauty of Pflug's writing is her ability to deliver a narrative which juxtaposes the consumer-driven frivolity of teenagers with their vulnerabilities to harm caused by adults around them. In an age where abuse of any kind is decried in very public spaces with strident calls for draconian measures, Mountain is about healing, not punishment. And in it, we are directed to the importance of victims helping other victims to heal.

There are few writers who can draw their readers into the personae of their characters as eloquently as Ursula Pflug. Mountain is a novel that leaves no room for detached bystanders. It sweeps you up and infuses you with the emotions of its young protagonist and in the end, leaves you enmeshed in her sorrow.

Read more here.



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