Best-selling author visits Sisters

The brilliant writing of national best-selling author Jonathan Evison was featured front and center at Paulina Springs Books on a blustery Friday evening.

Evison is one of the most talked-about new voices in American fiction with his second novel, "West of Here," a substantial piece of literary work celebrating the gallant spirit of northwestern expansion in the fictional frontier outpost of Port Bonita, Washington, on the jagged Pacific Coast.

Hailing from Bainbridge Island in western Washington, Evison has been on a whirlwind, 41-city tour in support of the new book, one filled with perilous drives over snowy passes, an NPR interview and memorable stops in local cafés and independent bookstores with his infant son, Owen, and wife, Lauren, that left him with a hoarse voice soothed only by an ample supply of Ricola lozenges.

His publishing debut, 2008's "All About Lulu," won the Washington State Book Award and elicited high praise for its startling detail embedded in an offbeat, Generation-X romp of Southern California life amid a family of bodybuilders.

"I wrote my first few novels starting at age 19 and gave them a proper burial," Evison said with a guilty smile. "Not that there wasn't some hope or promise in them, but they just weren't that good. After 'Lulu' I felt I was close and I wanted to get lost in the wilderness for my next novel. I knew the material well, and it ultimately came out of me pretty easily."

"West of Here," a 480-page saga of discovery, chronicles the lives of 65 different characters on the eve of Washington's statehood in 1889 and time-splices the continuing struggles of people in 2006 still attempting to redefine themselves in an evolving landscape of quiet power and beauty.

It's a beautifully told tale expressed via 42 limited points of view centered on the Klallam Indians and the churning Elwha River, pregnant with flashing runs of steelhead and sockeye. With its vintage postcard cover art and vivid colors of red and yellow, the novel is part historical tapestry, part biographical journal and a whole lot of magic.

Toeing the line between the classic and modern with crisp, evocative prose, the novel has garnered 25 A-List reviews and was Amazon's February Book of the Month. It was published by Algonquin Books and shares the same editor as Sara Gruen's "Water For Elephants," Chuck Adams, who called "West of Here" the best novel he's worked on in over four decades of publishing.

"It gets very weird and very different," admitted Evison, addressing a full house in his trademark porkpie hat and black blazer. "I lure them in with a historical story and then toss in some time travel. People come in with certain expectations and are a bit startled. It's not historical fiction, but a story about history, which is something totally different. I conceived of a narrative lens that was a kaleidoscope of spinning, colliding points of view, a history made of flesh and blood, bifurcating two timelines."

Evison entertained dozens by discussing his eclectic background in staccato bursts of energy and anecdote with topics ranging from punk rock bands, sorting rotten tomatoes for work, midnight Bigfoot hunts, and the joys of fatherhood.

"I grew up on a steady diet of Dickens, Twain, and Jack London, writers who all brought their settings to life on the page and that's exactly what I wanted to do for my little Olympic Peninsula. My father would read Dickens to me at night and next to Shakespeare, no one has such a mastery of language as Dickens. All my favorite writers let me own the story."

Reading playful passages from his book to illustrate some of the interests that begin the questions Evison is so interested in starting, the manic author hoped to convey the idea that he has an agenda in mind and is not just sitting alone in a room in pajamas writing this stuff.

"The purpose of all art to me is to start a conversation. This writing process is all empathy and discovery," he said. "I didn't learn to really write until I learned to totally empty myself of myself, and when you're done with it you become a more expansive person. People still come west and try to reinvent themselves. Five generations of immigrants and settlers moving here have not enjoyed the same opportunities of those who followed."

A third novel, "The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving," will be released in 2012. Evison is currently at work on a fourth book, "The Dream Life of Huntington Sales."

"West of Here" is available at local book stores or online at http://www.westofherethebook.com.