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The Oregon Trilogy #2
Moontrap
Following Trask in Don Berry's trilogy of novels set in the Oregon Territory, Moontrap is a book of remarkable beauty and power about a man caught between his vivid past and an uncertain future. The year is 1850, a transitional period in the new Oregon Territory, with settlers and lawmakers working to subdue the untamed, uncivilized region. Johnson Monday, a former mountain man, has been living on a bend of the Willamette River near Oregon City with his Shoshone Indian wife for seven years, struggling to make a place in settled society. One summer morning, Monday's old friend Webster T. Webster, a raucous, unrepentant trapper, arrives for an unexpected visit. With his earthy humor and stubborn adherence to the simple life, Webb leads Monday through adventures that flirt dangerously close to lawlessness, while helping him to rediscover his moral center. Through defiance, triumph, and tragedy, Moontrap follows Johnson Monday as he comes to realize that relinquishing the stark honesty of mountain life for the compromises of civilization is too high a price to pay. Nominated for a National Book Award and winner of the Spur Award of the Western Writers of America for best historical novel, Moontrap recounts the conflict one man faces in keeping with his old ways or forging a new life. The OSU Press is proud to reissue this richly comic and intensely poignant portrayal of pioneer life in the Northwest.
315 pages, Paperback
First published September 28, 1962
6 people are currently reading
175 people want to read
About the author
Don Berry
54 books12 followers Primarily known for his historical novels of early Oregon country -- Trask, Moontrap, and To Build a Ship -- Don Berry lived and worked from 1974 until his death in 2001 as a writer, painter, musician, sculptor, instrument maker, poet, and Zen practitioner on Vashon Island, in Seattle, and at Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island. He ventured into educational software in the pioneering days of computers, authored scripts for adventure films, wrote commissioned books, and built a website called Berryworks for his own unpublished fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and philosophy. Berry developed his writing skills with science fiction stories in the 1950s, but it is his trilogy of novels and his non-fiction history A Majority of Scoundrels (all written and published between 1960 and 1963) for which he is best remembered. With them, he helped create a new Northwest fiction style. Journalist Jeff Baker has called him "Reed's Forgotten Beat" for his work, his practice of Eastern metaphysics, and his longtime friendship with poets Gary Snyder (b. 1930) and Philip Whalen (1923-2002), an association that began at Reed College in Portland in the 1950s. Berry's novels, and Scoundrels, were republished between 2004 and 2006 by Oregon State University Press.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
April 29, 2017
Heads up-some spoilers.
I hiked to the top of Saddle Mountain this morning to finish this book, on a whim to be in the place of Webb's final showdown with the Oregon City posse as I read of it. In the steepest spots, the wire mesh that holds the trail in place tore up my good running shoes, just as the loose rocks beneath it tore holes in Webb's moccasins and later in his skin. Crossing the razorback ridge between the peaks, I looked over my shoulder to the tree line where a group of farmers, herded like sheep, lay nervously in wait for the command to flush out and finish off the mountain man. Passing the vertigo-inducing rock chimney on the final ascent to the summit, I wondered how the hell Monday thought anyone could escape by way of it.
As in Trask, Don Berry's major achievement is in the solidity of his descriptions, his magical ability to resurrect the Oregon Territory-its human players to some extent, but mostly its landscape-vividly and without sentimentality (because yessss, he bitches about the rain).
My only real complaint is that, in Trask and Moontrap both, Berry tends to instill his 1850 characters with 1960 sensibilities. For example, there's something of the Harlequin romance in the relationship between Monday and Mary: Monday, a rough-hewn trapper-turned-reluctant-farmer, turns into a pussycat in the arms of his (third) Shoshone child bride (common law of course). Also, he's simply floored by remorse when he discovers, midway through a sex scene, that she's just not into it-I'm skeptical.
Worse, though, is what Berry does to Webb during his flight across the Coast Range. The reader is supposed to buy that the uncompromising mountain man-who eats deer heart raw and ripped still-warm from the animal's rib cage, who holds the little skin left on his skull in place with a headband made from the scalps of Indians who crossed him, who chatters to himself incessantly about bygone horse raids and war parties, and so on, Wagh!-routinely trips on the interconnectedness of everything, all the beauty in the great and terrible alike. No.
Tragedies aside, the story's good fun-full of moonshine and firearms and primitive camping-and good education-full of (albeit fictionalized) historical people and events that I'd never have the patience to read of in nonfiction form. The dialogue is out of control. Did Berry make this shit up, or did he unearth primary sources demonstrating that this is how folks actually talked? (What is "Wagh"?! Considering how often this word is spit out throughout the novel, I really wish the author had provided guidance on pronunciation.)
Finally, I enjoyed the undercurrent of conviction that humans (the Manifest Destiny-minded in particular) are a plague on the planet. Though Webb is the primary proponent of this sentiment, Monday chimes in with one of my favorite lines of the book: describing the posse's encampment at Clatsop Plains, he notes that the men in their bedrolls "looked like the droppings of some monstrous dog that had come out of the sea to foul the land".
I hiked to the top of Saddle Mountain this morning to finish this book, on a whim to be in the place of Webb's final showdown with the Oregon City posse as I read of it. In the steepest spots, the wire mesh that holds the trail in place tore up my good running shoes, just as the loose rocks beneath it tore holes in Webb's moccasins and later in his skin. Crossing the razorback ridge between the peaks, I looked over my shoulder to the tree line where a group of farmers, herded like sheep, lay nervously in wait for the command to flush out and finish off the mountain man. Passing the vertigo-inducing rock chimney on the final ascent to the summit, I wondered how the hell Monday thought anyone could escape by way of it.
As in Trask, Don Berry's major achievement is in the solidity of his descriptions, his magical ability to resurrect the Oregon Territory-its human players to some extent, but mostly its landscape-vividly and without sentimentality (because yessss, he bitches about the rain).
My only real complaint is that, in Trask and Moontrap both, Berry tends to instill his 1850 characters with 1960 sensibilities. For example, there's something of the Harlequin romance in the relationship between Monday and Mary: Monday, a rough-hewn trapper-turned-reluctant-farmer, turns into a pussycat in the arms of his (third) Shoshone child bride (common law of course). Also, he's simply floored by remorse when he discovers, midway through a sex scene, that she's just not into it-I'm skeptical.
Worse, though, is what Berry does to Webb during his flight across the Coast Range. The reader is supposed to buy that the uncompromising mountain man-who eats deer heart raw and ripped still-warm from the animal's rib cage, who holds the little skin left on his skull in place with a headband made from the scalps of Indians who crossed him, who chatters to himself incessantly about bygone horse raids and war parties, and so on, Wagh!-routinely trips on the interconnectedness of everything, all the beauty in the great and terrible alike. No.
Tragedies aside, the story's good fun-full of moonshine and firearms and primitive camping-and good education-full of (albeit fictionalized) historical people and events that I'd never have the patience to read of in nonfiction form. The dialogue is out of control. Did Berry make this shit up, or did he unearth primary sources demonstrating that this is how folks actually talked? (What is "Wagh"?! Considering how often this word is spit out throughout the novel, I really wish the author had provided guidance on pronunciation.)
Finally, I enjoyed the undercurrent of conviction that humans (the Manifest Destiny-minded in particular) are a plague on the planet. Though Webb is the primary proponent of this sentiment, Monday chimes in with one of my favorite lines of the book: describing the posse's encampment at Clatsop Plains, he notes that the men in their bedrolls "looked like the droppings of some monstrous dog that had come out of the sea to foul the land".
August 1, 2010
the second of don berry's "trask novels," moontrap is set two years later (in 1850) and some eighty miles further east (in oregon city) than its predecessor. while there are a few recurring characters from the first book, this novel revolves around former mountain man (and friend of elbridge trask) johnson monday. monday has resigned himself to the less exciting life of farming, yet still yearns for the freedom of roving the cascade range. monday has a hard time adapting to his new trade and the many changes taking place in the burgeoning oregon territory only make his acclimation all the more difficult. monday's new way of life is irrevocably changed when an unexpected tragedy begets more violence.
moontrap, for all its adventure and rich prose, does not shimmer with the same raw intensity as does trask. it does, however, possess a similar descriptive brilliance and compelling narrative arc. don berry's works are far from the formulaic outings often associated with westerns and they address issues generally absent in lesser works of the genre. moontrap is more than just a memorable work of fiction, it is also an essential novel in the great canon of pacific northwest literature.
he was now coming into country that suited him better. with the ending of the flat land the ugly traces of man ended. here there were no scars on the face of the land where man had cut and burned and ripped the earth with his filthy metal plows. it was something he could not understand, this mindless violation of what existed and was good; the insensate drive to make the world conform to man's size and comprehension, the violent rape of the earth by which he spread his ugly and diseased seed. it was a futile thing, a witless viciousness, and there were times when the thought of it made the old man sick. he did not understand any of it, and yet he had seen that, for some, there was a meaning and importance that escaped him, and that was frightening. they gained something from all this ugliness and destruction, something he did not know. they broke their lives against the stones of the earth, and killed joy and freedom with their grimness, and seemed to think their lives were good in proportion as they suffered in destroying what was natural.
moontrap, for all its adventure and rich prose, does not shimmer with the same raw intensity as does trask. it does, however, possess a similar descriptive brilliance and compelling narrative arc. don berry's works are far from the formulaic outings often associated with westerns and they address issues generally absent in lesser works of the genre. moontrap is more than just a memorable work of fiction, it is also an essential novel in the great canon of pacific northwest literature.
he was now coming into country that suited him better. with the ending of the flat land the ugly traces of man ended. here there were no scars on the face of the land where man had cut and burned and ripped the earth with his filthy metal plows. it was something he could not understand, this mindless violation of what existed and was good; the insensate drive to make the world conform to man's size and comprehension, the violent rape of the earth by which he spread his ugly and diseased seed. it was a futile thing, a witless viciousness, and there were times when the thought of it made the old man sick. he did not understand any of it, and yet he had seen that, for some, there was a meaning and importance that escaped him, and that was frightening. they gained something from all this ugliness and destruction, something he did not know. they broke their lives against the stones of the earth, and killed joy and freedom with their grimness, and seemed to think their lives were good in proportion as they suffered in destroying what was natural.
January 10, 2017
Based on the research that went into writing my historical non-fiction book Calvin Tibbets: Oregon's First Pioneer, I think that Don Berry's depiction of tensions between Oregon's earliest settlers and the wagon train pioneers who arrived later is accurate as well as compelling. When Calvin Tibbets and others arrived in Oregon Country there were no white women, and no way to legally marry if there were. So, like Hudson's Bay Company trappers, these early American bachelors had "country marriages" with women of native tribes. Though men like Tibbets longed for more Americans to join them in Oregon Country, it must have been hard to deal with the intolerance of interracial marriage that they brought with them. During probate hearings, Tibbets' neighbors testified that he and Louisa (a Clatsop Indian) felt the same pressure as Johnson Monday and Mary did, and that like Monday, Tibbets' refused to abandon his mate. Louisa died soon after Tibbets' premature death of cholera in 1849. No reason is given for her death; but I wonder if she just couldn't face a life raising their two metis children alone on Clatsop Plains.
October 15, 2017
Sounds like it was written like a racist dog, and it probably was. But parts of it are absolutely beautiful.
December 18, 2016
Set in 1850 in the Willamette Valley, Moontrap tells the story of Mountain Men encountering, and sometimes trying to become part of, the "civilized" world of the newly formed Oregon Territory. About halfway through I felt the need to do a little research on the Mountain Man culture, this part of Oregon's history, and some of the historical figures and events that are key in the novel, which illuminated my reading. The novel is beautiful, fascinating, funny, and moving; I recommend it.
January 9, 2018
The second book of Berry's trilogy, Berry captures the tension between the trappers and mountain men attempting to make the transition to a life among settlers in 1850. The setting is Oregon City, the dialogue is offensive but historically accurate, and the prose is captivating. The last three chapters describe the final showdown between two mountain men and the Oregon City posse at Saddle Mountain south of Astoria. these final chapters are beautifully written.
September 2, 2012
I absolutely loved this book. Seeing as I live right near where the book takes place, it was easy to imagine the characters roaming around and the challenges they faced. I felt it did not flow quite as good as Trask however I loved the ending in Moontrap.
December 30, 2020
It took more time to sink into than Trask but the end was nearly the same. An incredible portrait of a moment in time.
May 14, 2025
Much as I admire the first installment of the Oregon Trilogy, 1961's Trask, its ending felt slightly MFA, i.e., schematic rather than organic. In Moontrap, set in 1849, a year later, and written the same span after, it's apparent why this was nominated for a National Book Award (won by one of my all-time favorites, Morte D'Urban, by J.F. Powers, happily reprinted by NYRB along with his other works).
This season, Don Berry returns to themes of Indian-settler tension in the emerging Oregon Territory to be, as whites rush in, the wagons rumbling into the Willamette Valley as the Gold Rush erupts to the south. Already, Johnson Monday, Meek, Trask, and former mountain men have come in from the already shrinking frontier, farming and marrying (or not quite, a subtle but decisive plot point in the typical nuanced treatment of Berry) indigenous women, and raising children embodying the alembic of old and new, brash and subtle, restless and resigned, or dominant and subdued by relentless force.
These powers include nature. Webb, a recalcitrant recluse, refuses to capitulate to the supposedly civilizing authority of church and state, dubious justice meted out to natives by posses, and hangmen. When Monday finds himself compromised into cooperation with the sheriff and his opportunist gang, he must choose his allegiance as the American way of law and order displaces the tiny community of veterans of the trapping times, whose roaming days have ended under the harsh light of conformity.
What succeeds here? For all of Trask's phenomenological sophistication in latter stages, the energy of how chthonic energies compel isolated men to undergo altered perception (note Berry in cahoots with Gary Snyder's clique of Portland-based Beat pioneers) sustains itself slightly more smoothly than in the already highly recommended passages where those in Trask face similar primal terror and pain.
I look forward, therefore, to find out how Berry conveys the drama along the same Coast Range in To Build a Ship, which of course wraps up the trio. As well as his concurrent history of the raw, real-life models for his adventurers, The Rocky Mountain Trading Company, in A Majority of Scoundrels. It's a shame that after these four books so rapidly produced, he dropped out of the competition, so to say, as did Ken Kesey just shortly after with his own two memorable Beaver State contenders, Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion. At least these all remain resurrected for purchase or borrow now.
This season, Don Berry returns to themes of Indian-settler tension in the emerging Oregon Territory to be, as whites rush in, the wagons rumbling into the Willamette Valley as the Gold Rush erupts to the south. Already, Johnson Monday, Meek, Trask, and former mountain men have come in from the already shrinking frontier, farming and marrying (or not quite, a subtle but decisive plot point in the typical nuanced treatment of Berry) indigenous women, and raising children embodying the alembic of old and new, brash and subtle, restless and resigned, or dominant and subdued by relentless force.
These powers include nature. Webb, a recalcitrant recluse, refuses to capitulate to the supposedly civilizing authority of church and state, dubious justice meted out to natives by posses, and hangmen. When Monday finds himself compromised into cooperation with the sheriff and his opportunist gang, he must choose his allegiance as the American way of law and order displaces the tiny community of veterans of the trapping times, whose roaming days have ended under the harsh light of conformity.
What succeeds here? For all of Trask's phenomenological sophistication in latter stages, the energy of how chthonic energies compel isolated men to undergo altered perception (note Berry in cahoots with Gary Snyder's clique of Portland-based Beat pioneers) sustains itself slightly more smoothly than in the already highly recommended passages where those in Trask face similar primal terror and pain.
I look forward, therefore, to find out how Berry conveys the drama along the same Coast Range in To Build a Ship, which of course wraps up the trio. As well as his concurrent history of the raw, real-life models for his adventurers, The Rocky Mountain Trading Company, in A Majority of Scoundrels. It's a shame that after these four books so rapidly produced, he dropped out of the competition, so to say, as did Ken Kesey just shortly after with his own two memorable Beaver State contenders, Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion. At least these all remain resurrected for purchase or borrow now.
May 25, 2020
I actually enjoyed this book a bit more than Trask, just because I could relate to the characters a bit more, and their stories ... how to fit in or not, seemed to be more universal. I really enjoyed the last part of the book as Webb was moving towards the end of his life, doing the thing he loved, discovering a new mountain. I'm usually not a big one for lots of descriptive scenery in a book, but Don Berry does it in a way that I can appreciate!
January 19, 2025
It beautifully intertwines history and fiction, bringing to life the struggles and triumphs of its richly drawn characters. The author's meticulous attention to historical detail is matched by her ability to weave a compelling narrative that is both poignant and inspiring. This novel is a treasure for anyone who enjoys immersing themselves in a bygone era and experiencing the lives of those who shaped it.
December 2, 2021
This is the least good of the four Don Berry books I have read. I was hoping it might be redeemed by the ending, but it is pretty dark. Perhaps realistic, but still a bit of a tough read, especially considering the constant racist language, which was undoubtedly accurate for the time.
May 3, 2020
Haven't read the final installment but both of these books are excellent and a must read for anyone interested in the frontier or that lives in the PNW, particularly the NW Oregon coast
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October 21, 2022Local lore and some accurate history included.
August 26, 2024
Much better than Trask. Trask isn’t bad but it ultimately feels a little thin. Moontrap is much more expansive, the characters are richer, and it’s more tragic.
September 5, 2025
A deep look at society
Mountain men finding their way in a racist society. They just want to watch the hawk, hunt the deer and be left the hell alone. Wagh!
Mountain men finding their way in a racist society. They just want to watch the hawk, hunt the deer and be left the hell alone. Wagh!
February 1, 2014
This is Berry's second novel that takes place in the Oregon Territory. Berry brings mountain men down to developing communities before statehood and to the conflicts of religion, politics, racism. They're always restless, needless to say.
Monday is trying to make a place for his Shoshone wife and himself, trying to farm and not being good at it.
Webester is his older buddy from trapping days in the Rockies. He's not impressed with so called civilization. When Webster tries to avenge a wrong done to Monday, trouble ensues.
Berry writes beautifully about men in the wilderness of the Coast Range of Oregon. You are there with them, whether in this book or in the first novel in this trilogy, "Trask," who was a real mountain man and early Oregon settler.
Monday is trying to make a place for his Shoshone wife and himself, trying to farm and not being good at it.
Webester is his older buddy from trapping days in the Rockies. He's not impressed with so called civilization. When Webster tries to avenge a wrong done to Monday, trouble ensues.
Berry writes beautifully about men in the wilderness of the Coast Range of Oregon. You are there with them, whether in this book or in the first novel in this trilogy, "Trask," who was a real mountain man and early Oregon settler.
January 5, 2009
Berry, Don. 1962. Moontrap. Viking Press. Popular Library, New York. Pbk. edition: 2004. 2nd of a series on Oregon history centering around Tillamook, OR. 1st title: Trask : the coast of Oregon, 1848 ...., 3rd title: To build a ship.(Ordered through ABE Books: around $5)
Describes the struggle between Indians, mountain men, and white settlers. Neither mountain men nor white settlers show desirable human characteristics. White settlers are far more prejudiced toward Indians and go after the Indians in very violent ways.
Describes the struggle between Indians, mountain men, and white settlers. Neither mountain men nor white settlers show desirable human characteristics. White settlers are far more prejudiced toward Indians and go after the Indians in very violent ways.
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July 15, 2010I was surprised at how much the narrative drew me in. Trask, the first book in the trilogy is on Oregon's list of 150 books for Oregon's Sesquicentennial. At the time of reading the library didn't have a lending copy of book one. So I kept getting distracted by the fact that I hadn't read the first book. But Berry's writing style is incredibly modern. I kept flipping to the front of the book to see when the book was published. 1962? Really? After I read Trask, I will return to this book.
September 11, 2021
Bizarre, beautiful, over-blown, entrancing. An epic description of the clash between “settlement” and “mountain men” in early PNW. Gave me a whole new feeling about what it is to sleep under a roof & live in one place, and what is lost.
April 12, 2007
I really liked this, reminded me of "Dead Man" by Jim Jarmusch. Great combination of Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, and Man vs. Himself. A little slow in the beginning but well worth it!
January 13, 2009
Novel of Oregon zwischenstadt, circa 1850.
June 3, 2009
Can't get enough Don Berry. This thing is a great western...but so much more. Must been read in sequence with other Berry books: Trask, Moontrap, To Build a Ship
January 18, 2015
When I first tried this book I was not in the mood. Then I was and am so glad I tried again. Moon Trap is amazing and not only did I enjoy it so much but learned a lot too.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews