Tag Archives: Wilderness

The Poacher’s Son

Title: The Poacher’s Son

Author:  Paul Doiron

Publisher: St. Martin’s Minotaur, May 2010

Summary:  Mike Bowditch is a game warden for the state of Maine. Perhaps he chose this career to make amends for his father’s criminal acts. His father, Jack, is a Vietnam vet who has been divorced from Mike’s mother for several years. Since the divorce, Jack has tried to live as far from people as possible, living off the land and poaching game.

When two men are gunned down in an ambush, all evidence leads to Jack. One of the dead men is a Sheriff’s deputy and the other is a representative from Wendigo Timberlands, a company that has recently purchased close to half a million acres of forestland. Included in the purchase was land that had been used for privately owned camps and sporting lodges, one of the camps belonging to Jack  As a child,  Mike suffered from abuse and neglect at the hands of his father, but he cannot believe his father is capable of murder and sets out to prove his innocence.

The wilderness setting and the added family drama make “The Poacher’s Son” a compelling story. As an animal lover, however, I could have done without the descriptions of Jack’s hunting and trapping practices. In fact, I had to skim over the graphic details. Other than that, I really enjoyed this story and hope to hear more about Mike Bowditch in the future.

Who will like this book? Mystery fans and hunters, anglers, and outdoor enthusiasts.

Recommended by: Sue, Circulation Coordinator

The Other

TitleThe Other

Author:  David Guterson

Summary: David Guterson, the author of the PEN/Faulkner-winning Snow Falling on Cedars, has written an exquisite story about a transcendent friendship between two very different men.  John William Barry and Neil Countryman cross paths at a high school track event, and that chance meeting connects them for the rest of their lives.  While Neil comes from a modest background and leads a modest life, John William is a child of privilege and wealth.  Together the two share their love of hiking and the outdoors – we are treated to some beautifully written passages describing the wilds of the Pacific Northwest – and share  a bond, a literal blood oath, that is unbreakable, even as their lives continue in seemingly opposite directions. Neil becomes a teacher, marries and has a family, but John William retreats from society, moving permanently into a cave deep in the woods.  Neil is the only one who knows where he is, and keeps this secret even though it weighs heavily on him.  John William rewards him for this ultimate act of friendship him in an unfathomable way.

Webster’s dictionary defines the word ‘other’ as “being the one left.”  It may seem as though John William is the other in this relationship simply by his act of becoming a hermit.  But Neil is also an ‘other,’ the half that stays behind, lives the conventional life, and yet is haunted by the same question that John William struggles with – what is it that really matters in life.  It appears as though they are each living the opposite answers to that question.  In doing so, they complete each other.

Who will like this book?  Anyone who enjoyed Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.

If you like this try: East of the Mountains by David Guterson

Recommended by: Mary, Reference Librarian