THE CORNER OF RIFE AND PACIFIC

by Thomas Savage ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 20, 1988

What safety a man knows is only in the tribe. After the hunt [the ostracized man] is left only with the stripped carcass""--unless one is no longer young and hungry, or is led away from the tribe by a dream. Again, Savage (For Mary, With Love, 1983; Her Side of It, 1981; etc.) plumbs the poignant unquiet and passionate reserves of those who simply do not belong. Here, a father and son--loved and strengthened by strong-fibered, vigorously empathetic wives--drift or spin off from the rapidly solidifying community of an early-20th-century Montana town. One of six men who trailed cattle into the rich river lands, John Metlen helped bring big money into the town of Grayling (incorporated 1890). Proud of his hotel, enjoying his amassed property, adoring wife Lizzie, and loving (though puzzling) loner son Zack, John Metlen is an agreeable man--even if ""improvident."" But by 1918 he is bankrupt. In that year, Lizzie, who ""woke each morning loving life,"" dies in the flu epidemic, and Zack returns from the Signal Corps in WW I, determined to pursue his solitary work during the dark night hours--when airwaves crackle with the chatter of ham operators: that of perfecting what will become commercial radio. It's at a Pioneer Day celebration in nearby Idaho (complete with gunfire, speeches, and a historical tableau vivant) that Zack finds Anne Chapman, proudly one-fourth Indian (from the same tribe that Grayling folk had driven from their ancestral land). A few years later, wife Anne's shocking act, which rocks Grayling, leads the couple and their son on to a better destiny--and release. The Metlens of all ages gain an almost majestic stature against Savage's Big Sky perspective on the ""nature and variety of earthly chores."" In ruminative asides, the author ponders the past, the repeating patterns of American tribal emergences, and even the end of evolution itself: ""Would there one day be a great rejoicing and a sound of music and laughter?"" A richly atmospheric, beautifully crafted novel, and the town of Grayling--from cattle trails to Main Street--has the power of legend, and a bloodstream American legacy.

Pub Date: July 20, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Morrow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1988

Categories: FICTION