Category Archives: between books

Kate Belt’s Monday Book: MINK RIVER

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The message from Wendy contained not another cat video, but an invitation to write a Monday Book column while she labors to birth her own new book. We temp reviewers like me (I’m a reader not a writer) move everyone closer to a new book by Wendy. I get to introduce Brian Doyle to Wendy’s reading community. Win-win!

The Monday Book is Mink River. I suspect few have heard of Brian, but who can watch this eight minute clip, which also includes exquisite Oregon scenery, and not love him immediately? http://watch.opb.org/video/2365599863/

 

Brian has prolifically published five novels, books of prayers, poems, essays, children’s stories, and a fun read about Oregon Pinot Noir. Of his novels, Mink River ties with Martin Marten as my favorite. Sadly, there will be no 6th because Brian died of brain cancer last year at age 60, not long after his diagnosis. It’s a devastating loss to his readers and loved ones.

Any one, every one of his novels is worthy of the Pulitzer or National Book Award, but inexplicably he is little known outside of the Pacific Northwest.

 

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Mink River is a fictional town set on the Oregon Coast. It’s a slice of life book about life in community. It is about us, us Oregonians, Pacific Northwesterners, Westcoasterners.  We are loggers, fisherfolk, conservationists, farmers, tree huggers, artists, poets, and priests, and teachers, and doers of public works.

There’s Moses, the crow, who makes the town’s business his business. He helps save people when he can and gives them his presence when he can’t. It’s not a mystery story, but there is a mystery and Moses helps solve it. There’s a nun who is dying, and there are two men who work for the Department of Public Works, defining their job as doing good works for the public. They wander around watching for opportunities to provide assistance, such as giving haircuts. It’s also about time, in a metaphysical way you’ll just have to read for yourself. And then there is Blake. You’ll find instances of the poet William Blake throughout the story.

The book reminds me of everything I loved about my Oregon home in Portland for over 20 years. Its essence will remain with me always. Doyle has captured its flora, fauna, and people, tatting us across time in this powerfully written novel. Everything Brian wrote reflects an awe and reverence for creation and The Creator. His eye seemed to observe everything, missing nothing. He called Mink River a love song to Oregon and Martin Marten a love song to Wy’East, the original Native American name of Mount Hood. The absolutely exquisite writing flows lyrically, drawing me into Brian’s current, making me want to let myself go and float along inside the story. Brian’s disdain for punctuation contributes to this, though it made his editors crazy! As for me, I become the salmon swimming upstream to spawn, the old man climbing the mountain in search of time.

Here’s one more link, one of many tributes to Brian after his death: http://www.oregonlive.com/books/index.ssf/2017/05/brian_doyle.html

Trial and Punishment – and Life

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Jack’s Wednesday guest post is bitter sweet – –

Regular readers will probably know that I visit once a month with inmates in the local Federal Penitentiary (what a strange word!). I started doing this four years ago as part of the Prison Visitation and Support organization (PVS).

When I started I inherited two inmates from my predecessor and continued to visit with them, as is PVS policy, until they were moved to a different facility, as is the Department of Prisons policy to discourage close relationships between prisoners.

One of my guys was Bryan (not his real name) who was originally from Oklahoma (except he wasn’t). I visited with him for three and a half years and we got on well and always had lots to talk about. He was in for life – a real life sentence with no parole. Like anyone in that situation he needed some hope and for him that was continual pursuit of a successful appeal against his sentence. Our monthly conversations always ended up with his latest attempts to conduct convoluted conversations with folk ‘outside’ about his latest appeal.

Out of curiosity I googled his name and easily found details of two previous unsuccessful appeals. I was horrified to learn the details of his case. He had been the ringleader of a drug gang that had gotten into an argument with another one and folk had been murdered in various particularly gruesome ways. He never denied that folk had been killed but always talked of how corrupt the courts and the state justice system was, and how he’d been ‘framed’.

Notwithstanding all this I still found him to be a straightforward and easy guy to talk with. He was part Native American who helped organize a sweat lodge in the penitentiary and went to great lengths to stay away from any trouble.

Just about six months ago I went to my regular visit with him and he was much more depressed than I’d ever seen him and assumed he’d had a ‘knock back’ on his latest appeal attempt. But it wasn’t that. He had been having some problems with his throat that affected his voice and it had been determined that he should go for tests and diagnoses to see if he had cancer.

A month later we met again and he was euphoric – he had just gotten back the day before from hospital where he had had the tests and shortly after had been given word that he was clear – just an infection!

Then I had a visit here at the bookstore from the local Native American who oversaw the sweat lodge at the penitentiary. He knew that I visited with Bryan and wanted me to know that the diagnosis was premature. He had been given wrong information and the tests had actually confirmed that he did have throat cancer and it was beyond effective treatment.

By the time I went back he had been moved to a prison hospital and I never saw him again, but there’s a website where you can track the whereabouts of any inmate in the system and I checked on Bryan regularly just to make sure he was still in the facility.

Yesterday I did that and read this – deceased 01/10/2018

I don’t understand why I should feel so sad about Bryan’s death when I have lost quite a few close friends and family over the last couple of years. Folk who lived pretty blameless lives and certainly were never responsible for killing anyone. I know Bryan had done wrong, that he wouldn’t be considered “deserving,” but perhaps everyone deserves someone to mourn them, or just someone to talk to, even though they cause others to mourn. There are many reasons why I visit for PVS, but the main one is because even the worst humans are still human after all.

Maybe there’s a kind of justice in the way Bryan was given real hope and then had it torn away, but I miss him and wish he was still battering away at yet another appeal. RIP.