AMERICAN AUTHORS CHALLENGE--JANUARY 2025--THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

Hello, all. Welcome to another year of reading and celebrating American writing.

For the second year in a row, I have asked for volunteers to host a few months of this Challenge. As you can imagine, one runs out of ideas after doing it for 10 years, even though my own enthusiasm for American literature remains high.
Having someone else step up for several selections is amazing, and I'm really looking forward to 2025's AAC. The full list for this year can be found here. For January, we will be visiting the Pacific Northwest region, which we (OK, ME, I mean I) have defined as including western British Columbia and Southeastern Alaska as well as the states of Oregon, Washington and Northern California, from the coast to the Rocky Mountains, approximately. Ocean, beach, forest, mountain, streams and a big old city or two provide lots of scope of story. And history...fiction or non-fiction, let's not forget history. As this month's selection is a topic, rather than a particular author, we'll let subject matter dictate whether a work "belongs" in this challenge, rather than the author's roots, if there's a question. We always try for flexibility and inclusion, so if it feels like it belongs to the region, read it.





Some suggestions of authors and topics to consider:

Ken Kesey If you haven't read Sometimes a Great Notion, one of my top ten contenders for Great American Novel, this would be a good time.

Jamie Ford
Beverly Cleary
Chuck Palahniuk
Garth Stein
Kristin Hannah
Sherman Alexie
Raymond Carver
William O. Douglas
David Guterson
Kim Fu
Dana Simpson (I highly recommend making the acquaintance of Phoebe and Her Unicorn)
Jess Walter
Roscoe Sheller
Don Freas

Asian immigration
Japanese Internment, WWII
Logging/mining/the California Gold Rush
Indigenous culture
The fur trade
European exploration of the Pacific Coast
Buffalo soldiers assigned to Southeast Alaska
during US/Great Britain border disputes

You can take it from here!

I will pull a volume of Carver stories off the pile mid-month, it is some long while since I read him.

I am in again this year and reading Garth Stein this month. Specifically, A Sudden Light, which I am hoping that I like more than his The Art of Racing in the Rain.

I have a collection of short stories by David Guterson that I may dip into.

>1 laytonwoman3rd: I'm going to try to read Sometimes a Great Notion for this challenge--thanks for the suggestion!

>2 Caroline_McElwee: I will look forward to your take on the Carver stories. As I recall I tried him moons ago, and wasn't a fan. I do have the Library of America collection, so may dip in.

>3 alcottacre: Racing in the Rain never called to me...I don't get along with books written in an animal's voice. (The exception being Master and Margarita)

>4 kac522: I have The Country Ahead of Us, The Country Behind on the shelf...I had forgotten that. Hmmm...

>5 AnneDC: I really hope you enjoy it! I may just read it again.

>6 laytonwoman3rd: Yeah, that's the Guterson collection I have, too. In fact, I think he's the only Pacific-NW author I have on the shelves.

>1 laytonwoman3rd: My cousin Barbara Berger lives in Seattle. Her most well known book is Grandfather Twilight, for those who like picture books.

>6 laytonwoman3rd: I became a big fan back in the 80s, not long before he died, I think it started with a story in a Sunday supplement. And through him to Tess Gallagher.

One of my favourite poems:

>8 quondame: Thanks for introducing her to us, Susan. I love beautifully illustrated children's books, and have 3 grandnieces to share them with. I'll be checking her out.

>9 Caroline_McElwee: Well, I love that poem, Caroline. And I pulled my Carver collection off the shelf, so I'll definitely try him again. I know he is revered among short story aficionados. And I was very impressed with Gallagher's short fiction when we featured her in 2022. She was highly influenced by Carver, so the "experts" say.

Joining with Jamie Ford House at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and Beverly Cleary Beezus and Ramona - nice contrast.

Chased around some shelves, then some boxes, pursuing books by Chuck Palahniuk, Jess Walter, Sherman Alexie. Making the semis were Citizen Vince, Snuff and Invisible Monsters, and The Toughest Indian in the World. I'm going to riffle through their pages, and when the time comes, make a choice. How about that?

I read A Chill Rain in January by L. R. Wright, part of a mystery series set in Sechelt, British Columbia, on the Sunshine Coast. The series has a strong sense of place, which is its biggest draw. It's not my favorite type of mystery. I prefer whodunits, and this series is more like Columbo, where you know who the murderer is from the beginning. The tension comes from wondering if the police will figure out that there has been a crime and if the murderer will be caught.

I am going with The Cold Millions by Jess Walter for this month's challenge.

I finished A Sudden Light by Garth Stein tonight. I gave it 3.75 stars.

I've read one essay and four short stories from the Carver collection. I am impressed. I still scratch my head at the end of a story now and then, but the writing is crisp, and I get drawn into his characters and their world very easily.

>16 laytonwoman3rd: Clapping.

>16 laytonwoman3rd: >17 Caroline_McElwee: I’ve started What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Carver, your words really resonate with me! Looking forward to reading more.

Karen O

>12 weird_O: After plucking candidates from the shelves (Citizen Vince by Jess Walter, Snuff and Invisible Monsters, both by Chuck Palahniuk, and The Toughest Indian in the World by Sherman Alexie) I sampled each and returned Chuck's creations to the shelves. My ultimate choice was Alexie's collection of short stories. And I read it. I do have Walter's book in the Book Pool.

I read about 6 of the 10 stories in The Country Ahead of Us, the Country Behind by David Guterson (1989). All the stories I read featured teen-aged boys in Seattle, and I just didn't connect with most of them. The best story for me was the shortest (6 pages), with the longest title: "Wood Grouse on a High Promontory Overlooking Canada", which concerns 2 brothers, the elder just returned from the Vietnam War.

>20 kac522: I'm going to pull that out and sample a few before the month is over. I suspect I'll have a similar reaction to yours.

>21 laytonwoman3rd: This is not a valid criticism, but it bugged me: 8 of the 10 stories are in first person, and of the ones I read, they felt kind of like the same person, even though I think they're supposed to be different narrators.

>22 kac522: I get why that would bug you. Reading short stories in bulk, so to speak, often raises quibbles for me that are a bit unfair, because in many collections, they were not all originally intended to be read back to back, and doing so can highlight authorial quirks or faults that might not be so obvious if you spaced them out more.

>23 laytonwoman3rd: Yep
>22 kac522: Correction: the first story is told by a married man at a party who tells a story about a trip he took as a teenager. But all the rest of the stories I read (5 more) are told by or about teen-aged boys.

This month's theme was the nudge I needed to finally read The Light on the Island: Tales of a Lighthouse Keeper's Family in the San Juan Islands by Helene Glidden. The author was one of 13 children who moved to Patos Island in 1905 when their father became the lighthouse keeper. There's some tragedy in the book, but also a lot of humor. It's the best book I've read so far this year.

>25 cbl_tn: Oooh...making a note of that one.

Just to let everyone know, I have made an early start and made sure that I got up the February AAC thread up in a timely manner.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/367970#n8742932

American Muslim Authors

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver



I really enjoyed the read of this collection of short stories. Carver is great at short stories; he's of the not-a-wasted-word school of writing. There is a strong noir-ish feeling to the stories; yes, there is "love," but there is also lots of booze, lust, and craziness. I think that Carver excels at dialogue, at very real-sounding words and action.

A quote from the book's story that carries the name of the book: "It ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love."

From Frank Kormudo, quoted on the book cover: "Carver's fiction is so spare in manner that it takes a time before one realized how completely a whole culture and a whole moral condition is represented by even the most seemingly slight sketch." Yes, indeed.

Karen O