ABOUT THE BOOK

When Dr Ben Givens left his home in Seattle - heading east with his Winchester and his hunting dogs in tow - he never intended to return. It was to be a journey past snow-covered mountains to a place of canyons, sagelands and orchards, where, on the verges of the Columbia River, Ben Givens had entered the world and would now take his leave of it. What transpired was not the journey he anticipated. Dr Ben Givens had been a bypass heart surgeon - adroit and admired in his field. He had been well acquainted with the human body, but its fallibility had been distant from him until a diagnosis of his own condition, which he concealed even from his family.

"You're still the toughest old goat in the mountains," his grandson Chris says to him, unwarily proposing their next climbing trip. Since his wife Rachel died nineteen months before, Ben had returned to a pastime of his youth - shooting game birds in canyons and sagelands. It would come to seem an unfathomably cruel choice for his final hours, but then so much unfathomably shifts in Ben's perspective as his intended exit transforms into an eye-opening, life enhancing diversion.

David Guterson's celebrated, involving prose and narrative genius unravel the mysteries and reveal the potential powers of the human spirit even as it ebb, in a moving and action-filled drama set against an unforgettable landscape.

David Guterson is the author of Snow Falling on Cedars and a collection of short stories, The Country Ahead of Us, The Country Behind. He lives in Washington State.

 

Here are some readers' comments on East of the Mountains:

"When Dr. Ben Givens discovers he is dying of cancer he decides to end his life by faking a hunting accident. Rachel - his wife of fifty years, has died eighteen months previously and he hopes to save his daughter the trauma of his lingering death.

Givens, who is an enthousiastic game hunter sets out from his home in Seattle with his faithful dogs and a game plan which should end with his turning the gun on himself. He is travelling east of the mountain towards the sagelands and orchard country of his youth, when he is involved in a car accident. The events which follow thwart his plans and he becomes involved in saving lives rather than ending his own.

This is a beautifully written book. Guterson's novel is a work of powerful contrasts, from mountainous rugged landscapes to the lush and fertile orchard regions, from the horror of war to the joy of love.

I would love to see this novel make the short list for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award."

(Reviewed by a member of Raheny Library Reading Group.)

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"The novel, "East of the Mountain" by David Guterson is the story of Dr. Ben Givens, a man aged seventy-three years who is dying of terminal cancer. He had been married for fifty years. His wife had died nineteen months before. He sets out on a final journey in the company of his two dogs Tristan and Rex, with the intention of committing suicide. An unexpected accident causes a change in his plans and sends him on a journey of a different nature.

The story of his journey has many twists and turns. He meets many different people and it is the experiences he has on the way that makes him change his mind about suicide.

I thought the story was unusual and different. I like the way the author mixed the past and the present. The description of the landscape was vivid and clear. The atrocities of war were very graphic.
I enjoyed the book very much."

Ellen Maher, a member of the Ballyfermot Library Book Discussion Group.