Faraway Places (16 page)

Willamette Week

WINNER:
1983 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD

Seaview
Introduction by Robert Coover

Toby Olson

Fiction / 316pp / $15.95 / 0-9766311-6-4

This novel follows a golf hustler and his dying wife across an American wasteland. Trying to return the woman to her childhood home on Cape Cod, the pair are accompanied by a mysterious Pima Indian activist and shadowed by a vengeful drug dealer to the novel's apocalypse on the Seaview Links.

“Even a remarkable dreamer of nightmares like Nathanael West might have been hard-pressed to top the finale … Unlike any other recent American novel in the freshness of its approach and vision.”

The New York Times Book Review

The Well and the Mine
Introduction by Fannie Flagg

Gin Phillips

Fiction / $15.95 / 0-9766311-7-2

In 1931 Carbon Hill, Alabama, a small coal-mining town, nine-year-old Tess Moore watches a woman shove the cover off the family well and toss in a baby without a word. The event forces the family to face the darker side of their community and seek to understand the motivations of their family and friends.

“Gin Phillips is the real thing.
The Well and the Mine
is a stunning triumph: haunting, lyrical, a portrait of the southern family, a story of the human predicament.”

Vicki Covington
Author of
Gathering Home
and
The Last Hotel for Women

Leaving Brooklyn
Introduction by Ursula Hegi

Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Fiction / 168pp / $12.95 / 0-9766311-4-8

An injury at birth left fifteen-year-old Audrey with a wandering eye and her own way of seeing; her relationship with a Manhattan eye doctor exposes her to the sexual rites of adulthood in this startling and wonderfully rich novel, which raises the themes of innocence and escape to transcendent heights.

“Stunning. Coming of age is seldom registered as disarmingly as it is in
Leaving Brooklyn.
”

New York Times Book Review

Faraway Places
Introduction by A.M. Homes

Tom Spanbauer

Fiction / $14.95 / 0-9766311-8-0

This novel marks the end of childhood for Jake Weber and the beginning of trouble for his family. An innocent swim ends with something far beyond anyone's expectations: Jake witnesses a brutal murder and is forced to keep quiet, even as the woman's lover is falsely accused.

“Forceful and moving … Spanbauer tells his short, brutal story with delicacy and deep respect for place and character.”

Publishers Weekly

FINALIST,
2005 OREGON BOOK AWARD

The Greening of Ben Brown

Michael Strelow

Fiction / 272pp / $15.95 / 0-9716915-8-4

Ben Brown becomes a citizen of East Leven, Oregon after he recovers from an electrocution that has turned him green. He befriends eighteen-year-old Andrew James and together they unearth a chemical-spill cover-up that forces the town to confront its demons and its citizens to choose sides.

“Strelow resonates as both poet and storyteller. [He] lovingly invokes … a blend of fable, social realism, wry wisdom, and irreverence that brings to mind Ken Kesey, Tom Robbins, and the best elements of a low-key mystery.”

The Oregonian

WINNER,
1987 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD

Soldiers in Hiding
Introduced by Wole Soyinka

Richard Wiley

Fiction / 194pp / $14.95 / 0-9766311-3-X

Teddy Maki is a Japanese American jazz musician trapped in Tokyo with his friend, Jimmy Yakamoto, both of whom are drafted into the Japanese army after Pearl Harbor. Thirty years later, Maki is a big star on Japanese TV and wrestling with the guilt over Jimmy's death that he's been carrying since the war.

“Wonderful … Original … Terrific … Haunting … Reading
Soldiers in Hiding
is like watching a man on a high wire!”

The New York Times