Mink River: A Novel

Like Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood and Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, Brian Doyle’s stunning fiction debut brings a town to life through the jumbled lives and braided stories of its people.In a distinctive and lyrical voice, Doyle tells the town, in all its humanness and oddity and beauty. There are love affairs and almost-love-affairs, brawls and boats, Irish immigrants and Salish stories, mud and laughter. There’s a Department of Public Works that gives haircuts and counts insects, a policeman addicted to Puccini, beer and berries, and a philosophizing crow. Readers will close the book more than a little sad to leave the village of Neawanaka, on the wet coast of Oregon, beneath the hills that used to boast the biggest trees in the history of the world.• Editor’s Choice Prize for Fiction, Foreword Reviews’ Book of the Year Awards • An Oregonian Top Ten Northwest Book“Award-winning essayist Doyle writes with an inventive and seductive style that echoes that of ancient storytellers. This lyrical mix of natural history, poetry, and Salish and Celtic lore offers crime, heartaches, celebrations, healing, and death. Readers who appreciate modern classics like Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio or William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying will find much to savor here. Enthusiastically recommended.” —Library Journal (starred review)“[An] original, postmodern, shimmering tapestry of small-town life…” —Publishers Weekly“The strength of the novel lies in Doyle’s ability to convey the delicious vibrancy of people and the quirky whorls that make life a complex tapestry. He is absolutely enchanted by stories, with the zeal and talent to enchant others… The greatest gift of Mink River is that it provides every reason in the world to see your own village, neighborhood and life in a deeper, more nuanced and connected way.” —The Oregonian“Doyle's language is rich, lush, equal to the verdant landscape he describes, and his narrative ricochets with a wondrous blending of the real and magical from character to character as he tracks the intersecting lives of Neawanaka one summer.” —Greg Sarris, San Francisco Chronicle“Doyle explores the inner workings of a community and delivers a timeless story of survival, transcendence and good cheer.” —Tim McNulty, The Seattle Times