Outer Sunset

by Mark Ernest Pothier, Paul Heitsch (narrator)

Jim Finley—a recently retired English teacher living alone on the shifting edge of San Francisco—has been set, unwittingly, on the back porch of life. Trying to harmonize the voices in his head, he sits most days by his stack of “to-do” books until, one day, his daughter comes home with the worst news of her life. Everything changes. As his broken heart reengages, he steps back into a new world. He sees his ex-wife has launched into a larger life than the one they’d shared. He is surprised to find it easier to talk to his son’s immigrant girlfriend, or even the remains of a Russian saint, than to the young man he’s raised. He misconnects with Carol—his first date in decades—a woman he enjoys talking with but doesn’t quite hear. Set in the pre-tech calm before the turn of this century, Outer Sunset is a deeply felt story about the intimate place where long-lasting growth occurs in our lives; how we revise, or live without, our dreams; how to love the flaws of those closest to you and watch a child grow away into someone better than you’d imagined; and how to be shaken by beauty amidst unimaginable loss and remain standing.
 

Genres: Fiction

Audio CD

Published May 15, 2023

About the author

Mark Ernest Pothier’s debut novel, "Outer Sunset," will be published by University of Iowa Press in May 2023. His stories have won a Chicago Tribune/Nelson Algren Award and been long-listed for the Pirates Alley/Faulkner – William Wisdom prize. He holds an MFA from SF State, a BA from St. John’s College in Annapolis, and lives with his wife and kids in San Francisco.

Reviews

[Jacqueline Nyathi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Critics of literary fiction say they hate it because nothing happens. Lovers of literary fiction say they love it because nothing happens. I may be making that up, but the appeal of the genre for me has always been the character study at the centre, and this book is a good example.

The narrator is a father of two adult children, separated from his wife three years before, but still feeling it keenly. He spends much of his time sitting in a back room of the bungalow he still lives in, possibly drinking too much. His kids look in and try to keep an eye on him, but they have their own lives. When his daughter receives a (spoiler: the) dread diagnosis, he has to find himself again, and examine the ways in which he has fathered his children, and how he has responded to his many losses.

It’s a really thoughtful portrait of fatherhood, unusual for me as most of the books I read that are like this are about motherhood. I loved it for this, and for the protagonist, too. He’s far from perfect, or knowledgeable, or confident, or any of the things fake fathers in books tend to be. He’s emotional, and conflicted, and confused, and stumbling, a delicately-drawn human.

That’s my main recommendation of this book, the primary reason I think you should read it. There are some deeply sad moments, and things in fact get really bleak; but the novel does end on an achingly beautiful, hopeful note.

Thank you to University of Iowa Press and to NetGalley for the ARC.

[maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

a book about someone who "needs a lot of solitude" and cherishes the everyday beauty they experience living in the avenues in SF, sign me up!

love love loved the imagery of the fog, the bluffs, the chill, ocean beach is captured so well and it felt very special to read about my neighborhood 30 years ago. I picked this up to help ground myself in my last few months here and it definitely fulfilled that goal - that being said I found a lot of the actual story hard to hang on to, being this deep in the mind of a man who doesn’t have a lot of the words to describe his own emotions while the female characters around him seem much more interesting than the narrator was…tough sometimes

[Marc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being a San Franciscan native, I caught a number of San Francisco references that only locals would know about. For instance the author references Des Alps restaurant in the North Beach area that closed more than several decades ago. It was a favorite Friday night spot for families to enjoy the delicious meals from the Basque region. He also references a San Francisco family camp in the High Sierras. He doesn’t mention the name of it but he is referring to Camp Mather, a San Francisco family camp near Hetch Hetchy Dam.

As to the story itself, it was an up and down read for me meaning it kept me going at times and at other times it bogged down.

[Alex Bednar · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s been a while since I’ve read a quieter fiction novel and I really enjoyed this one. I will say some of the interactions between characters left me feeling like I missed some key moment where more rapport was built but these moments were easily outdone by the many other moments I was really moved by this family’s musings on life.

[Edmund Roughpuppy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange place to call home
Mark Ernest Pothier writes with feeling about the part of San Francisco closest to the Pacific Ocean. I lived there ten years, and appreciated his descriptions of the place. The beach in San Francisco is not a nice neighborhood; in fact it may be the only city in the world where the houses closest the beach are the least expensive. This is because it’s always cold there. The fog comes in regularly and stays, sometimes for weeks. The sand is gritty with the ashes of failure, the water a Payne’s Gray of despair. It’s a wonderful place to walk through the fog and regret your life.



On the other hand, about two days a year, the sun comes out, the water sparkles turquoise, and you’d swear you were in Hawaii. The rest of the time, it’s cold and lonely.

Family, lost romance, and getting old
Mark’s protagonist is a man in his late fifties, divorced, retired, wondering what to do with himself. Taking advantage of the brooding atmosphere, he thinks a great deal about his life, his choices, and what’s different now.

When I was young and meeting a girl, for the first time, my mouth would be shut and my hands deep in my pockets. It's become simpler, somehow; I still have a few things left to lose, but these days losing holds more promise than keeping.

He also tackles a favorite subject of mine: What is the relationship of our minds to the outside world? How much ‘reality’ can we be sure of? These questions assert themselves after a romance we depended on abandons us.

Once you've reinvented a woman you love into someone to hate, you’re left with the possibility that you might also have invented the woman you loved. If you are to be honest, you have to begin doubting you loved an actual person. You have to think everyone is replaceable. You might have invented the woman who (you thought) loved you, and with whom you'd planned to share these long, dark nights.

He finds new purpose when his daughter is diagnosed with cancer, he looks forward to caring for her, suffering along with her.

Criticism and benediction
I think Mark erred when he built an important subplot around our hero’s rent-controlled house. The time period of the novel is the late 1990s, and single family houses of the type in the Outer Sunset were not governed by San Francisco’s rent control ordinance until 2020.

Finally, Mark charms me by including in his cast of characters a stunning orthodox cathedral on Geary Boulevard, which you seldom see on postcards. Our hero kneels, not because he expects it to do much good, but because he’s helpless to do anything else. I’ve done this many times.



Forgive me. I'm praying on my knees to one day believe. Not because I do.

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

“You’re a man who needs a lot of solitude, but who still feels he’s got to run around apologizing to the world to justify some time alone.

Think about it. Maybe you just feel safer someplace where the only person you can lose is you?”

Outer Sunset is a quiet novel about a retired man that spends his days alone, reading on the back porch of his sinking San Francisco home. One day his daughter comes to him with shocking news that changes their family’s lives.

This book is a charming reflection on life and family and how we can accept our own faults and those of others. I was left wondering how amidst loss and change you can still find beauty in the mundane.

Some would say this story is about nothing. For those that appreciate literary fiction, they would say the opposite.

I always enjoy the types of books that give me a brief glimpse into a character’s life and leaves me with a piece of them in my heart, wondering what they’re up to from time to time or what happened after I turned the last page.

Outer Sunset does just that.

It’s also fun to read books that take place in your own city and I want to read more about San Francisco. I enjoyed visualizing the city before the .com boom and wondering how different life was then.

Now that I’ve lived here for a year and a half, I was able to pick up on local references and envision so many of the scenes that unfolded, particularly when the characters walked along Ocean Beach, one of my safe havens here.

The fog is mentioned so many times that it becomes a main character in itself, even an old friend. Which if you live here, you know that to be true.

[M Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pothier gets San Francisco right. He knows that it's colder than people think, and that our neighbors don't always speak the same language but are always happy to see a new child; he knows it's hard to make ends meet, that most of us rent and are always in danger of losing a lease (especially bad because rents are always climbing). He knows many of us are lonely, drink too much, isolate ourselves, lack courage, fail to understand our partners and children well... He's right about so much, I wonder why I was not swept along
Perhaps it's because the narrator is mostly passive, and reactive. I have had trouble in the past with this. I tend to appreciate protagonists of action more than those paralyzed with self-doubt. It's a worthy story and relatable, but maybe I see to much of what I like least about myself in it.
Anyway, worth a look. Good job of capturing a particular pivotal time late in one's life and feelings of helplessness and shame.

[Erin Nyren · Rating 4 out of 5]

i really loved this book, which i bought on a trip to SF at green apple books. i was staying in outer sunset and i get such a kick out of reading books that take place in hyper specific places i myself have lived or been. aside from my affinity for the setting however, i always enjoy a quiet literary fiction vibe and this is it. the main character jim finley was not always likable or relatable for me, but i enjoyed the slow reveal of his relationship with his ex wife jackie and the exploration of his relationship with his daughter dorothy, though i struggled sometimes to completely grasp some of the finer points of their interactions. strangely, i was not very moved by dorothy’s experience of her cancer, though i was moved by jim’s. i think perhaps dorothy could have stood to be rendered a bit more tenderly…jim isn’t necessarily meant to be an emotional man so maybe that’s why i felt somewhat removed from her. atmospheric is definitely the word for this book, and despite feeling dense, i found myself paging through it quickly. recommend!

[SD2SF · Rating 4 out of 5]

Living in San Francisco allows you to appreciate the subtleties of this book. Not sure I would have enjoyed it as much had I not. It was very nostalgic and made me feel a profound affection for the protagonist. The ex wife Jackie was insufferable though. Was very apparent a straight old white man wrote this book. 🫣

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good stuff. This author writes well and creates an effective atmosphere and characters. I stayed engaged, and expect this one to stick with me for a while.

Thanks very much for the free ARC for review!!

[DianeJulia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. The narrator's voice is strong and open and very appealing. The sense of place is wonderful (I'm a former resident of San Francisco's Inner Sunset), and the story unfolds into an engaging plot that does not disappoint. A good read.

[Mary Mccutcheon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I may have been enchanted by this book because, for me it was lovesong to the unglamorous familiar places of my 30 + years at the western end of my bi-coastal world.
It is the tale of a beautifully broken family facing the challenges and fragility of life with wounded but open hearts.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quiet novel that carefully captures the struggle to show up for family and those one loves amidst the shifting terrain of life, and the potential for coming together as we face those pains of living that are both mundane and still seemingly unbearable.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I laughed, I cried. I really liked Jim, Dorothy and X and wasn’t crazy about the wife, the girlfriend, or the counselor… But here’s the kicker, I liked not liking those people. The book was very well written, engaging and totally believable. I wish it was longer.

[Leah Totsubo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extra star for being set in San Francisco specifically the sunset !!! Though this is outer sunset (obviously).

This made me cry in parts and think about life and death. It also felt somewhat unfinished. The ending felt like "oh that's it?"

[Alex Annear · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interior but in the end a richly felt family of characters that left a mark on me.

[Janet Lynch · Rating 5 out of 5]

My kind of literary novel with the bonus of its setting being a part of San Francisco that I love.

[Amanda Ejups · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great character development and a winding story. Loved reading a book based on my neighborhood.

[Arbel Efraty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ranks a bit high on the misery porn scale.
Very SF though, very Sunset

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

So slow, well written, but not captivating

[Eliza Oak · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5