(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Contemporary Fiction Views: A very Spokane tale [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-05-27

Once upon a time, it was possible for a reporter writing at a mid-size daily newspaper to break important stories. At the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Karen Dorn Steele wrote groundbreaking stories about Hanford Nuclear Reservation downwinders. Doug Clark broke the Falcon and Snowman story while working at the Coeur d'Alene Press, then went to work at the Review for decades.

And Jess Walter, working with veteran reporter Bill Morlin, reporting on Ruby Ridge while it was happening. Walter then wrote the definitive book about the siege and has since become an insightful chronicler through fiction of Spokane, the Inland Empire, and all the kinds of people who live there.

In Walter's latest novel, So Far Gone (Harper June 10), a former reporter finds his past has returned to him after spending years as a recluse in a family cabin in the woods. Rhys used to write newspaper articles about things that matter, like wolves and clean air. He did well at work but not so much at home.

A few years ago, he drove down to Grants Pass, Ore., to visit his daughter, her becoming-a-Christian-Nationalist-cult-member husband, and her two children. Rhys tried to be pleasant, but Shane popped off with one too many right-wing cuckoo bird statements. Rhys popped him one and drove off.

One day there is a knock at the cabin door. It's a woman who knows his daughter Bethany. showing up with 13-year-old daughter Leah and nine-year-old son Asher. Rhys has been alone so long he doesn't recognize his own grandchildren. But his daughter has asked him to take care of them while she spends some time alone. Shane isn't home; he is off with the militant church members in North Idaho.

Is Rhys too far gone to become a responsible grandfather and parent? Is Bethany too far gone in her hurt to come back? What about Shane? Can he be salvaged from an Aryan Nations-style compound?

The characters discover they are going to find out the answers whether they want to or not. Two militants kidnap the children to take back to the compound where they have spent some time. One of them is an eagle killer whose trial Rhys wrote about. Wait until he finds out who that scraggly grandfather is.

Rhys reaches out to his ex-girlfriend Lucy, who he had an affair with when they were both working at the paper. She's now the editor. And she reaches out to another ex, a now-retired cop, Chuck, to help. Chuck and Rhys drive up to the compound to retrieve the children.

One of the militants overreacts when Chuck shoots out a tire truck to prevent them from following the rescuers and rescued. The reason for the overreaction is about as Spokane/North Idaho an overreaction as can be. The scene is both hilarious and harrowing.

And that is the essence not only of So Far Gone, but of the region where the novel is set. During the last half of the 20th century, Spokane always seemed to be 20 years behind the times. High school kids cruised Riverside downtown on Friday and Saturday nights in the '70s, just like the new historical film American Graffiti.

People there can be eager to help. It was always normal to smile and chat with folks walking by or waiting in checkout lines together. But it also was a place where anything less white than Wonder Bread was considered exotic. The introduction of pizza parlors felt like cosmopolitan times had arrived. And then Taco Time opened. Well!

Even writing a novel set in current times, Walter shows how Spokane is caught between that doing for others and frustrated losers who believe everyone else is to blame for their problems, especially people who are not white men.

Walter uses this dichotomy to anchor a novel that has the stories of its struggling characters connect with each other. There is both hurt and healing in So Far Gone in its depiction of both a society that can seem so far gone down the wrong road and people who want to do the right thing.

Note: I didn’t seen much in where I usually look for new releases. So here is what Lithub.com found for you to consider.

READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/5/27/2324531/-Contemporary-Fiction-Views-A-very-Spokane-tale?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/