East of the Mountains

by David Guterson

A man plans a final journey into the Western wilderness in this "wonderful" novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of Snow Falling on Cedars (The Miami Herald).
 
Mid-October is harvest time in the Columbia Basin of central Washington, 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, and his endurance. But now he has been diagnosed with terminal colon cancer. Ben has never been a man to readily accept defeat—but he is determined to avoid suffering, and to avoid being a burden.
 
Accompanied by his two hunting dogs, he sets out on a trip, which he plans to end with an "accident." Journeying into deserts, yawning canyons, dusty ranches, and vast orchards, however, he is unprepared for the persuasiveness of memory and the promise he made to his wife, Rachel, the love of his life, during World War II. Along the way Ben will meet some people who force him to think more about his worldview—a young couple, a drifter, a veterinarian, a rancher, a migrant worker—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.
 
"Wise and compassionate about the human predicament . . . A writer who delves into life's moral complexities to arrive at existential truths." —Publishers Weekly
 
"Ben is deeply drawn and complexly sympathetic." —Entertainment Weekly
 
"Guterson draws compelling characters and creates a haunting sense of place and of humankind's paradoxical relationship with the natural world; a passage describing a desperate encounter with a pack of Irish wolfhounds compares favorably with the best of Hemingway." —Library Journal
 
"Guterson possesses a remarkable gift for capturing people and places, etching them into the reader's mind." —USA Today

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literature, Literary Fiction, Book Club, Novels, Adult Fiction

298 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

David Guterson is an American novelist.

Reviews

[Susan B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guterson is an extraordinary writer and storyteller. I read his first novel, Snow Falling on Cedars while spending one extremely snowy winter in Chicago with my dear Aunt Cassie as she fell ill with cancer and spent her last days in a hospice. The staff was nice enough to let me stay overnight anytime I wanted, so I often stayed up late watching the snow fall reading this book, keeping my Aunt company as she rested.

I'm in Chicago again this year, so I decided to mark the (eighth) anniversary of her death by reading another one of Guterson's books, East of the Mountains. As it happens, the main character in this book is coming to terms with having colon cancer, trying to decide whether to tell his family or to go off on his own and end it all. Ok, it's grim material, but it's also a really well written book with some great insights about aging and death. On the lighter side, my Aunt warned me not to visit her grave or else she would haunt me. When we did go to visit her this year, a big white goose confronted us in the middle of the road, looking right at us and blocking the way for the car to move forward for a few minutes. I can't help but think that was my Aunt, urging me to go out and live, rather than wasting time in a cemetery. Now that's a haunting worth experiencing :)

[Linda Hart · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eloquent, beautiful prose, but boring, slow story. Put it this way: if I were in the middle of a chapter and the phone rang it wouldn't bother me to put the book down and forget about it until I dusted the table it was sitting on.

[robin friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Age, Wandering, And Wisdom

David Guterson's novel "East of the Mountains" is set in the Columbia Basin of central Washington in the late 1990s. It tells the story of Dr. Ben Givens, a renowned heart surgeon who has recently lost his wife, retired, and learned he is suffering from terminal colon cancer. With the goal of saving himself and his family from unnecessary pain and suffering, he sets out with his two dogs on a hunting trip with the intention of committing suicide.

The book has strong components of a picaresque novel, with Dr. Givens's adventures in his brief journey, and of an American coming-of-age novel with its protagonist an elderly, successful man rather than a youth struggling to reach maturity. In some ways, this book reminded me of Kerouac's "On the Road" with an older and wiser hero. "Huckleberry Finn" for the ageing also lurks somewhere in the background

In his journey, Dr. Givens has a variety of experiences and meets many different sorts of people emanating from an automobile accident he suffers at the outset. He meets a young couple going skiing, a drifter who provides him with marijuana, a graduate student to whom he is briefly attracted who is studying Rudolph Steiner (the founder of an esoteric movement somewhat similar to Theosophy), illegal immigrants picking apples, a young woman veterinarian, and many others. He also recollects during his journey his past life, particularly his loving wife, his wartime experiences and his decision to become a physician.

Each of the people he meets along the way has something to teach him towards recovering (or gaining) a degree of self-understanding and acceptance of his condition. I found it striking and good that most of the people are rather ordinary in intelligence and achievement, with something valuable to teach a famous and skilled heart surgeon.

The book explores the theme of life as a journey and a quest for self-knowledge for someone with the experience of age. It speaks of the value of this our world, the only world we know. I was reminded of the American poet Wallace Stevens's observation that "The greatest poverty is not to live in a physical world". The book celebrates the beauty of the West, the emotional and erotic beauty of women, the beauty of using one's skills to help others, and the beauty of trying to understand oneself. The descriptions are good, and the story is well-told, even though it lacks a certain sparkle. A worthwhile and thoughtful book.

Robin Friedman

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise of a man dying of cancer but deciding, so as to spare his family heartache of a long drawn out death, to commit suicide in such a way that it would appear like a hunting accident didn't augur well. I had loved 'Snow falling on cedars' so thouight to give this a go. Am I pleased I did?

Our hero's plans do not run smoothly and along the way he meets and interreacts with a whole horde of characters. It is not simply a straightforward cliche'd ' man-learns-the-value-of-life-through-his encounters' but its probably not far off. Some of these characters are bizarre and some unrealistic; I for one cannot believe any shop assistant would be so callous as the one who makes fun of his black eye so crassly. Her lack of compassion seemed to be there just so Ben could reflect on how her lack of compassion made him feel alone. This is what Guterson seems to do a good deal. He introduces us to naive innocence, saintly kindness and ridiculous small time cruelty in such a way that few of the characters ring true but it is so as to move his plot along to another 'incident'.

Whilst talking to his daughter on the phone he tells her what has happened to him over the last few days and on a number of occasions she remarks how it all sounds unbelieveable....I couldn't have said it better myself.

Guterson also thanks a number of people at the end of the book for their help regarding veterinary practices and army history and other things; as i read the book I just felt he had taken large excerpts from books as various as ' The insides of dogs after they've been bitten a lot ' , ' what to do when operating on bitten dogs ', ' What roads to drive along from Seattle to other places and what bridges you will cross on the way' and ' the many ways to describe orchards ' and then just inserted portions every now and again through the text. Maybe 'Snow falling on Cedars ' spoilt me but I have to admit to being rather disappointed.

[Linda Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was hesitant to start this book since it is about a man facing his mortality but I am oh so glad that I did. This book is beautifully written about a man facing death but also realizing what life is about. He is not an extraordinary man yet he is in the aspect that every person is and each person has their own unique experiences to make them so. I loved this book so much, it made me feel good about life and also helped me realize somehow that facing death doesn't have to be so terrible, and being a person with parents in their late 70's it is something I think of often. If anything it made me want to learn everything about my parents past and appreciate the part of their life they have given me through the years. The book goes from past to present and revisits his relationship with his deceased wife and how they met as well as his experiences in WWII which includes some lifelong regret. This book did it all for me, I wish all books were like this.

[The Final Chapter · Rating 3 out of 5]

SJC Review: 3.26

This novel has the strengths of an excellent premise and wonderful descriptive prose, but the plot feels contrived and the pace sluggish. Guterson has unquestionable ability in painting a landscape so adroitly that it can attain as much attention as the main characters. Moreover, the novel's intended focus is one which promised much, and which could blend with the setting seamlessly. Ben Givens, a retired surgeon and widow, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and decides to save himself from the pain and incapacity which would ensue by veiling his intended suicide under the guise of a hunting accident. Thus, he journeys east of Seattle to the country of his roots but in doing so undertakes a more figurative odyssey in which a combination of memories related to his past, and events from his present, provide life-affirming episodes which make him question how his journey should end. However, the quality of the author's prose cannot disguise the narrative's lack of pace, while the characters and events which provide the storyline's positive counter-poise to the grim plan of the protagonist feel too artificial to have true emotive impact on the reader.

[Irene · Rating 3 out of 5]

A widower with terminal cancer decides to stage his suicide to look like a hunting accident. He wants to spare himself the months of pain and diminishment and to spare his children and grandchildren the burden of caring for him through a prolonged illness. When a car accident alters his plans, his life intersects with a series of strangers as he moves through unexpected events. Much of this novel is recollections of his youth, the early death of his mother, meeting the girl he would marry, serving in WWII. This is a very slow and detailed novel. I was very tempted to skim through much of it, unable to see how the lengthy descriptions of a field hospital surgery or a dog’s injuries, or…. Advanced the story or increased my understanding of the characters.

[Sergio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro intenso, lirico, intimista.
Un anziano cardiochirurgo in pensione, scopre alla fine di un breve viaggio, che la sua decisione di suicidarsi non è la scelta migliore per mettere fine la propria vita che gli appare ormai inutile.

[Leona · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eloquent prose, but I found most of it boring and painful to finish. I finally gave up at 50%.

[Oscar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esta es la segunda novela que leo de David Guterson, tras la estupenda ‘Mientras nieva sobre los cedros’, que tan buena fama le otorgo a su autor, sobre todo tras la versión cinematográfica. ’Al este de las montañas’ narra el viaje del septuagenario doctor Ben Givens por ese mítico oeste americano. A Ben, que ha enviudado recientemente, se le ha diagnosticado cáncer terminal de colón, y se propone realizar un último viaje a su tierra de origen, en su vieja camioneta y acompañado de sus dos perros, donde se propone acabar con su vida. La trama se desarrolla a través de los personajes que se va encontrando el protagonista, así como de diversos flashbacks donde sabemos más del pasado de Ben, sobre todo de su juventud y de sus experiencias en la segunda guerra mundial. La escritura de Guterson, rica en descripciones, nos ayuda igualmente a hacernos una idea de los espléndidos paisajes que recorre el protagonista.

’Al este de las montañas’ podría calificarse de viaje de descubrimiento personal, donde se reflexiona sobre la muerte y sus miedos, la vida y sus esperanzas. La prosa lírica y sobria de Guterson hace de esta una grata y recomendable novela.

[Fred Forbes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had a meeting with a potential financial planning client and the conversation moved from finance to books. He had this one in his car and was going to pass it on to a woman in hospice who, unfortunately, did not last long enough for him to do so. So, he laid it on me.

Interesting topic. How to kill yourself and make it look like an accident rather than putting your family through the months of steady decline and pain from colon cancer. (Interesting that I read a recent article on how doctors die a "better death" than the rest of us since once they get this type of diagnosis, they chose not to put themselves through the brutality of chemo, surgery, etc., but pretty much let nature run it's course with only palliative care. They have seen too much.) At any rate, off he goes, "east of the mountains" with his two hunting dogs to carry out his scheme. Well, strange comment for a planner but I'm sure most have heard the saying "Man plans;God laughs." And so it turns out.

Book is short, a bit draggy in places but the descriptions of the surrounding countryside are excellent and the places of real emotion and the big universal issues make this well worth the read.

[Dustin the wind Crazy little brown owl · Rating 5 out of 5]

There were ten thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
- Robert Frost, After Apple-picking

East of the Mountains is my second David Guterson book, the first being Snow Falling on Cedars. I will be seeking out more books by this author.
Keeping it old school, I used an audiobook on cassette to assist me in reading this wonderful work of fiction. I related to Ben's family heritage as my grandfather also planted fruit trees, ran a nursery and peddled fruit.

Favorite Passages:

Now on the roof tiles and against his window a vast Seattle rain fell ceaselessly, as if to remind him that memories are illusions; the din of its beating against the world was in perfect harmony with his insomnia.
______

The knowledge that this was indeed possible, that such an act was not out of reach, suffused Dr. Givens with a glandular fear that washed through him like a wave.
______

Ben shook off his memories, turned out the light, and called the dogs from the living room. It was time to go away from there. It was time to begin his journey.
______

The lie was open-ended so that his family wouldn't start worrying until he'd been dead for as long as a week - so none would miss or seek him where he rotted silently in the sage. Ben imagined how it might be otherwise, his cancer a pestilent force in their lives, or a pall descending over them like ice, just as they'd begun to emerge from the pull of Rachel's death. The last thing they needed was for Ben to tell them of his terminal colon cancer.
______

The truth was that at the end of this day of hunting, he intended to set his dogs free on the sagelands, hang himself up between strands of barbed wire - as if he'd been making a low fence crossing - and shoot himself in the carotid artery: shoot himself in the neck.
______

. . . the ashes that were the remains of them both would someday make a bed of roses - his for a red rose, hers for a white: the two to grow and intertwine with the passing of many years.
______

He, too, had articulated at times the consolations of a gradual dying: how the trivial paled in the face of death, yet the veins in the tree leaves and the evening slant of light were brought to the storefront of existence. How all was intensified, heightened, compressed, vivified, transformed, appreciated. How love deepened and ordinary tribulations sank into insignificance.
______

It was sometimes possible - the perception came and went - to view the imminence of his own end with a calm, fearless detachment.
. . . .
And so the best one could do, it seemed, was to remove the pain and horror from the process by choosing an intelligent suicide.
_______

The plan had a soothing elegance, and the prospect of succumbing to a hypothermic torpor was not really so dreadful. It was less like taking one's life than allowing it to be taken. One just stopped living, that was all.
The mountains beckoned in this way, the green wet flanks of mountains breaking out into windswept scree and snow.
______

A dense black shroud lay over his consciousness, and he felt that his brain had been jarred loose. At the same time, he felt startled awake, infused and adrenaline, raw. There was a giddy exhilaration experienced by those who survive accidents intact; there was a sense of freedom and good fortune, of his place among the blessed.
______

"That happens," Ben said. "Reality intrudes."
"Only if you let it," the boy said.
______

Sitting in the back of the Volkswagen van, Ben mistrusted his memories. Everything in memory achieved a truth that was only a brand of falsehood. He remembered what was beautiful - a torture unto itself, really - while all else receded and blurred, dwindling into insignificance.
______

At midnight they swallowed the last of their wine. He remembered taking her face in his hands. "Roses," she'd said. "Red and white. They'll make a single bush of pink roses."
"All right," Ben had said. "Roses."
She mentioned it a final time the day before she died. "Remember," she told him, two hours before her surgery. "You're red and I'm white."
_______

. . . he'd stopped hunting altogether. He had stopped fishing too. He'd been done altogether with killing. Yet he'd embraced it again after Rachel died, the killing had become a substitute life, and in the past two autumns he'd taken up again the pastimes of his childhood - shooting small birds in canyons and sagelands, deceiving geese from cold pit-blinds, killing mallards in the bends of sloughs.
_______

His mind raced, his thoughts were rich, his memories vivid, graphic. He felt he could touch the past.
_______

A schoolhouse was pulled on skids from farm to farm each summer to spread justly the burden of heating it and of boarding the accompanying teacher.
_______

She held Ben after school one day and told him he was her brightest hope in twenty-seven years on the western plains and a candidate for a good university, should he decide on such a path - a path she urged him toward greatly. A path he should have no fear about; a path he would walk with confidence.
_______

At midnight came a thunderstorm, and they lay with the lantern turned out in the tent to watch the lightning flicker. The rain fell with such fervor that the world disappeared.
_______

He stretched his back and revolved his head so that the bones in his neck cracked a little. He cleaned his glasses with his handkerchief, and when he slipped them on again, the moon appeared through his one good eye like highly polished marble. Everything it illuminated melted into shadows and was softly, darkly beautiful.
_______

He had entered a place of tired clarity. He was alert in some enervated, worn-out fashion, with the kind of acuity one arrives at in the aftermath of fever.
_______

His own life spanned that time and this, and so he believed in the old fast river as much as he believed in apple orchards, and yet he saw that the two were at odds, the river defeated that apples might grow as far away as Royal Slope. It made no more sense to love the river and at the same time kill it growing apples than it made sense to love small birds on the wing and shoot them over pointing dogs. But he'd come into the world in another time, a time immune to these contradictions, and in the end he couldn't shake old ways any more than he could shake his name.
_______

He could not afford to eat fruit anymore. His apple days were over.
_______

"It's like there's this spiritual dimension people just don't see. Because they're so occupied with teh material world. And in anthroposophy you try to reach it. You train your consciousness to rise above the physical. It's mostly an intellectual thing. You use your mind, you train yourself."
_______

Ben paused to button his jacket and to take in the color of the sky in the west, which had gone purple now. The shadows were deepening across the hills. The timbre of the light was quieting. The orchards that had looked so inviting in the sun were sullen now in the desert gloaming. The world lay altered by the imminence of night, as though a curtain was dropping over it. Yet out on the low rim of the western horizon the sun streamed into the high eastern sky, which held its unearthly light.
_______

Candlelight fluttered across the room. Trembling shadows, the borders of things muted.
_______

No matter how often he'd turned it over, no matter the years he'd passed with it, there was still no answer to the final riddle, or an answer lay beyond his reach. Always his search had led him nowhere, and the next day he was one day older, with no greater wisdom as a shield against death, nor revelation to pit against its strength. And this was how a person aged.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this author’s Snow Falling on Cedars and really, really enjoyed it....so I looked forward to reading this one and I was in no way disappointed. He knows how to tell a story and make the reader feel the joy or the pain of his characters. As with all books there may be some sections that some readers will want to skim through I skipped through a lot of Ben’s service record in WWII…but it certainly took nothing away from the journey that Ben decided to make, and that is really what the story is about. Ben is almost dead when he and his dogs start the journey back to the east side of the mountains. He knows he’s more than likely not coming back… he expects to die…but he will do it on his own terms…just the way he has lived his life. Ben asks the question that the book poses throughout…”When all that has given joy and meaning to life has ebbed through death and change in our final years, what is the point of living?” It's thought provoking. Sometimes comforting and sometimes painful, but I don’t believe I have ever read a book that presents a more powerful challenge…daring the reader to put themselves for 279 pages in the shoes of Ben Givens and answer that question.

[C.A. Simonsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

East of the Mountains is not nearly as sweeping or elegant as Guterson's magnificent Snow Falling On Cedars, but it is thoughtful, worthwhile read.

Retired doctor Ben Givens is dying of cancer. He does not wish to have his family see him go through a painful, upsetting decline. He sets out toward the other side of the Rockies on one last bird hunt with his beloved dogs.

Flashbacks of Ben's full life draw the reader into the story. We meet Ben's loving wife; we glimpse Ben's traumatic WWII experiences; we are told of his brother, Aidan.

East of the Mountains is a quick read - not a thriller or suspenseful or a fantasy but a simple, human story. If you're fond of the word "sage", this is the book for you.

[Maciek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Similarly to Cold Mountain, this novel takes up the odyssey theme. Ben Givens, a retired surgeon is dying of cancer. He decides to kill himself, and decides to go to over the mountains and do it. However, along the way he'll meet other people who'll affect him more than he could ever have thought.

This is a pretty simple story, though through its simplicity it actually works. Guterson obviously knows his way around the areas he describes, and even though his dialogue is extremely wooden in places and the characters simplistic, his descriptions made the novel enjoyable for me. While not a literary miracle, East of The Mountains is enjoyable, melancholy reading which serves as a good quiet, low keyed antidote to the sound and fury of an average day.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This rather short story by David Guterson is beautifully written. I especially like his descriptive writing about Eastern Washington State. I have been to Seattle a number of times, but I can't say I really know the state until I go east of Seattle, "east of the mountains." I certainly got a sense of what the area is like in this book. The story is about a retired surgeon who has terminal cancer. He decides to take his two dogs and go on one last hunting trip-for the purpose of committing suicide but making it look like a hunting accident. On the way, he meets various people--and they affect him in various ways as he affects them. We can see that his journey becomes one that will not end in death but one that affirms life (sorry, I guess that's a SPOILER).

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a huge fan of David Guterson, I recognized his writing as soon as I opened the book. It was like coming home. Descriptive landscapes lend themselves to being there. You can almost smell the northwest forest. The characterizations are always individuals that I can relate to quite easily because they are anyone, everyone. The story takes place, except for some flashbacks, in perhaps a two day span. This book is about a dying man, and his internal journey while taking a physical journey. Evocative and thought provoking. Beautifully written.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 3 out of 5]

East of the Mountains is beautifully written, but I came away wanting more. There were some acts of unexpected kindness that touched me deeply. Still, Ben Givens was facing his own mortality. I thought the book needed to deal more deeply with this subject.

[Nolan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve spent much of the last 15 months enmeshed in a deeper awareness of and love for life than I have ever known. I worry that my perspective has become a bit ridiculous and extreme. Yesterday, I proofed some braille calendar sheets for a project a friend of mine undertakes each year. I was looking at dates in 2023, and it struck me that these dates could be irrelevant to me. "It’s entirely possible you won’t be here for any of this," I told myself. "So, just in case that’s true, what will you do today to make this day the richest and best you’ve ever known?" I’ve learned over these past 15 months that you can have a terrible day and still experience supernal joy. Seemingly stupid tiny things have the power to cheer me to ridiculous levels. For most, a trip in a car to buy eggs and milk is mundane. I find myself reveling in the experience, and yes, I know how utterly stupid that comes across to those of you who read this. I focus on silly stuff—the quiet but treasured companionship of my wife in the driver seat, the extreme comfort of the vehicle, the rapidity with which the heated seat works in winter, the concert-hall sound of the car audio system, and I could go on, but I fear I’ve already lost some of you. I not only lay out the clothes I plan to wear the next day before going to bed, but I also pray for the privilege of being able to use them. I’ve learned that, when no day is guaranteed, every day is miraculous. Sadly, I haven’t always thought like that.

My musings above aren’t irrelevant to the review. Open this book to meet Ben Givens. He was a successful fictional heart surgeon in Seattle, but he grew up in the apple orchards of eastern Washington. Ben is 73 as the book opens, and he’s dying from colon cancer. It’s in a super-advanced stage; there’s no cure. His wife of nearly half a century is dead, and Ben doesn’t want to be a burden to his daughter and grandson, and his medical knowledge enables him to predict the brutal merciless path the cancer will take. That path surely includes burdensome work to the healthy ones who must care for him. He has another idea.

He arises one morning, prepares his house as if he’s returning to it, loads his two dogs into the back of an antiquated vehicle, takes his dad’s old side-by-side shotgun as if he’s going to hunt birds, and drives into the mountains near to where he grew up. Ben Givens will die at his own hand this day, and he sees that decision as a favor to his daughter. As to the dogs, he plans to simply set them free in the wild and wish them well.

But the man who for decades saved lives realizes soon enough that taking his is unnatural and stridently dissonant.

While disciplining his dog in the back of the vehicle, Ben loses control and wraps the old vehicle around a tree. He is injured, and he needs help. What follows is a series of events that will help Ben reorient his life and will give you much to think about an to enjoy about the writing style of this book.

As an example of Guterson’s creativity, he wants to flash you back to when Ben and his now-dead wife, Rachel, met. He uses a marijuana cigarette provided to Ben by a drifter he meets while trying to get to the place where he will off himself. As Ben inhales that first illicit smoke, his newly fogged mind takes him back to the past where they met and helps you understand how they fell in love.

A Second cigarette is the vehicle that again escorts you into his past so you can learn about his war service and how it shaped him. I would never have thought of using pot as a means of connecting the present with the past, but the author does that here surprisingly well.

While there are doubtless other books that more profoundly remind the reader of the immense value of the gift of life and the idea that our lives aren’t ours to callously fling away, this one is a thoughtful proponent of life. It reenforces my ongoing conviction that our most bounteous personal harvests often come from the most nondescript mundane fields of a given day.

[Chuck · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have only read two of Guterson's books, but have been impressed with both. This novel reads like a memoir except that it is fiction. The story is about the life of a doctor that served in World War II, had a great romance and life until his wife's recent death. The story centers on the fact that he is now diagnosed with terminal cancer and how he deals with this final blow. He escapes into the wilds of eastern Washington, where he was raised and commences to hunt, hike, hitchhike and make a difference in many lives. It is a redeeming story of how one deals with tragedy and death, but most important taught me of the kind of person that I hold in high esteem.

[Fiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was really keen to read this having loved Snow Falling on Cedars. I found it hard to put down.
At one point I thought, I don't like hunting or guns or even hiking much but here I am reading all about it and being really engrossed.
The plot takes some twists and turns and the way it's written you just have to keep reading to find out what happens.
Even the parts where Ben is reminiscing about his past fit in perfectly with what is happening in the present.
Great writing.

[Lauren Stoolfire · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF'd @ page 20

This just wasn't for me.

[Andy Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this novel of Ben,a 73 year old man facing death from cancer ,when it was first published. I just finished reading it a second time seventeen years later and noticed that my perspective had changed, during the first reading I identified with the narrator's forty something daughter and viewed the narrator, a recently widowed retired heart surgeon, with detachment, now of course the retired doctor's musings on his current and past life are more relevant.
The novel starts with Ben leaving his home and his careful steps to hide his intent to travel to the area where he grew up and commit suicide by shooting himself with his hunting shotgun. Ben just recently lost his wife after an extended illness and he did not want to subject his family to a long protracted hopeless fight against terminal colon cancer and he did not want to subject himself to the months of pain of the useless fight. Guterson makes it clear from the beginning that Ben has already started suffering from the pain and Ben's steps to shield his family and friends from the truth of the cancer and suicide by making it appear as a hunting accident show Ben as a strong and loving man, not as a weak victim.
The trip is jinxed from the start. Bad weather causes an accident at the summit of Snoqualmie Pass, injuring himself and totaling his vehicle. He is rescued/helped by a young couple who take him to a rest stop to call a tow company and his insurance company , a reminder that this novel was written before the prevalence of cell phones, and to allow him to self administer first aid, the couple then drives him to Vantage where he plans on renting a car. The couple remind him of when he and his wife were first married and sparks reminiscences of his early life. Guterson continues to use this device throughout the novel, breaking the journey toward a planned suicide with Ben's recounting of memories of early life working on his family's orchard, his meeting his future wife and their courtship and his experience in World War II which motivated him to become a surgeon. These memories not only keep the novel from becoming a dirge but shows insight into Ben's character.
Ben can't rent a car in Vantage so he starts a hike to George and does some bird hunting along the way. Before he gets to George he and his two hunting dogs encounter a coyote hunter's pack of dogs with tragic results including the theft of Ben's shotgun. Ben uses his surgical skills as a temporary fix until he gets to George and catches a ride to Quincy and a vet. He then takes a bus to Wenatchee and sits with a college student who is concerned by a the obvious sickness of a migrant worker on the bus. She encourages Ben to help and her limited Spanish allows her to translate to Ben that the young migrant does not want to go to a hospital because he does not have papers. The next turn of the adventure is when Ben passes his old homestead to go to where the coyote hunter's orchard to recover his stolen shotgun. This leads to a meeting of someone from his early life with an extremely poignant last chapter that finishes this splendid novel.
A favorite part of the book for me,a native of Eastern Washington, was the detailed well written and accurate descriptions of the geography and people of Eastern Washington.
This novel is best appreciated by not knowing its end, but suffice to say that it has the same grace and dignity that is displayed throughout the book about a difficult, challenging subject

[Mommalibrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story of an old man who is dying of colon cancer and his decisions over less than a week of time. The author seemed to know a lot about the place and work of the orchards east of the mountains in Washington state. The description was very interesting.

Here is a bit of text I particularly like to give you a flavor of the book. It was not all as good as this as his thoughts wandered widely over his life.

"And why couldn't he detach himself from this earthly, mad desire? Why did he go on wanting a woman who no longer lived in this world? Her hold on him was still great, a need with roots in his core. To die, he thought, was to escape passion's grasp, but that was the last thing he wanted. Instead he wished to be seized by passion and pinioned, held in its palm forever - he could not imagine any other existence as embracing real happiness."

[Robyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have read this book twice, not something I normally do, and now listened to it again in audio format.
It remains an extraordinarily well written story about a man's journey, of literally and figuratively coming to terms with his dying, through the physical journey he takes through the landscape of his youth and the people he encounters there.
This narrator truly does justice to the story, with Guterson's descriptive language of the landscapes the man has traveled and is traveling through.

[Sharon Huether · Rating 5 out of 5]

A retired doctor with terminal cancer, traveled the country side with his two hunting dogs to shoot a few birds. He meets a number of people along the way. The help he gives them are returned to him in spades. This story is so beautifully written that the reader feels in step with the characters.

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

Replace half of the landscape descriptions with more information about the relationship between Ben and his wife Rachel and my rating would bump up at least one star. The pacing is slow and just when a character starts to become endearing, they're dropped and never heard from again. However, Ben's transformation from suicidal cynicism to hopeful acceptance is indeed poignant.

[Rayleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was difficult to finish. The reminiscing parts of the story were too long & very descriptive, occasionally holding some interest. I had to skim some of the descriptions or I never would have finished it. I did enjoy the sections that were in the present,

[Stacie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very slow moving story. Out of this whole book, there were only a couple of chapters that had my full attention. I felt it was overly descriptive, almost in a way to fill the pages as there wasnt much story to tell.

[Belinda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good writer just a nothing story. Books are better if you have an interesting story.