Description:
For readers of Kristin Hannah's The Great Alone and David Vann's Legend of a Suicide, C. B. Bernard's debut novel shows a father and a daughter fighting toward hope through a traumatic past.
In the town of Disappointment, Oregon, washed-up boxer Lewis Yaw makes ends meet as a fishing guide. He's lived a life of violence, but doesn't understand real strength until he meets Janey, who can see good in even the most damaged things--including him. When she gives birth to their daughter, Grayling, Lewis worries that he'll mess her up as badly as his father did him. But he also sees a chance to right the wrongs of the past.
By high school, Gray has become his apprentice guide, his sparring partner, and his pride and joy. Life in their small town is nothing short of challenging--there's a marauding bear roaming the streets, a rival guide trying to kill Lewis, and a poacher littering deer carcasses along the river--but he is closer to happiness than he ever thought possible. When tragedy strikes, Lewis can't break free of his past, leaving Gray to fight to save the only thing she has left: her family.
Brief description:
C. B. Bernard is the author of the novel Small Animals Caught in Traps and Chasing Alaska: A Portrait of the Last Frontier Then and Now, a Publishers Weekly and National Geographic top pick and finalist for the Oregon Book Award in nonfiction. His fiction and essays have appeared in Catapult, Gray's Sporting Journal, and elsewhere. Though he called Alaska and Oregon home for much of his life, he now lives on the coast of Rhode Island's South County with his wife, Kim, a retriever named Nessie, and the ghosts of a couple of dogs.
Review Quotes:
"Reminiscent of Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion, this novel gives you love and heartache, disappointment and joy in equal measure. Bernard creates a small-town world that sucks you right in. This novel is full of grit and fishermen, broken towns and real animals, a wonderful read to go along with coffee or whiskey, or whiskey in coffee."
-- "Pedro Hoffmeister, author of American Afterlife"