The Other (Vintage Contemporaries)

Author: Guterson, David

Color: White

Edition: Reprint

Number Of Pages: 272

Details:

From the author of the bestselling Snow Falling on Cedars, a coming-of-age novel that presents two powerfully different visions of what it means to live a good life and the compromises that come with fulfillment. John William Barry and Neil Countryman shared a love of the outdoors, trekking often into Washington's remote backcountry where they had to rely on their wits—and each other—to survive. Soon after graduating from college, Neil sets out on a path that will lead him toward a life as a devoted schoolteacher and family man. But John William makes a radically different choice, dropping out of college and moving deep into the woods. When he enlists Neil to help him disappear completely, Neil finds himself drawn into a web of agonizing responsibility, deceit, and tragedy—one that will finally break open with a wholly unexpected, life-altering revelation.

Reviews:

“Gorgeous, haunting.... A deeply considered tragedy of social alienation and hubris.”

— The Washington Post Book World“A finely observed rumination on the necessary imperfection of life. . . . [Guterson's] books keep getting better.” —

The New York Times Book Review“Elegiac. . . . An exploration of how one should live in a flawed world, the choices we make and the values they reflect.”

— San Francisco Chronicle“Mesmerizing, even heart-breaking. . . . Guterson explores the fissures in our divided souls. . . . Vivid.” —

The Seattle Times“Excellent.... As humane as it is compelling.”

— The Philadelphia Inquirer“Guterson’s descriptions of light and shadow, of fir canopies and forest floors, are as strong as they were in Snow Falling on Cedars, dotting the pages like beautifully muted piano chords.... At its core The Other is a book about the roads we choose, and the subsequent regrets and what-ifs and I-wonders.” —

The Oregonian“Guterson creates a visceral world.... The Other is ripe with color and sound and texture.”

— Chicago Sun-Times“

EW Pick. In 1972, two Seattle teens, working-class Irish boy Neil Countryman and tortured trust funder John William Barry, bond over their love of adventuring in the Northwest’s vast wilderness. Countryman, who continues on to college, marriage, and a career teaching high school English, narrates the story of helping Barry drop out of society to live a hermit’s life ‘without hypocrisy’ in a remote, self-excavated cave. [This plot] is the perfect scaffolding to support Guterson’s absorbing meditation on what it means to grow up, sell out, and lead an honest life. A.”—Karen Karbo, Entertainment Weekly“ The Other features an unclaimed $440 million inheritance and a mummified corpse found in Washington’s Olympic Mountains, but it’s no murder mystery. Guterson uses these circumstances as the backdrop to [a] tale of two Seattle friends [who] forge an unlikely friendship . . . With prose that’s as careful and quiet as a mountain lion, The Other asks, and helps answer, two of life’s most perplexing questions: How do we live in an imperfect world, and what are our obligations to those we love?”—Steven Rinella, Outside“[Guterson’s] most brilliant and provocative novel yet. . . . He presents the reader with the quintessential questions of value and choice that shape life. It contains all the elements of youth, idealism and compromise, by paralleling two very different lives.”—Bill Duncan, Roseburg (Oregon) News-Review“PEN/Faulkner Award winner Guterson constructs a sensationalistic story that in other hands might have emerged as a page-turning potboiler. Here, events unfold in exquisitely refined prose, which creates a plot as believable as any quotidian workday, while evoking an unforgettable sense of place in its depiction of Washington State’s wilderness. . . . Bonded by a mutual love of the outdoors, working-class Neil [Countryman] and wealthy John William Barry become lifelong friends despite cultural disparities. The bond holds as their adult paths diverge, Neil choosing to teach while John William retreat...

EAN: 9780307274816

Release Date: 02-06-2009

Languages: english

Item Note: Great shape- pages are unmarked and sharp.Has a remainder mark. Paperback Used - Very Good Ships fast! 2009Reprint

Item Condition: UsedVeryGood

Binding: Paperback