6
DECEMBER 29, 2021�JANUARY 5, 2022
FROM THE SHELF
CHECKING OUT THE
WORLD OF BOOKS
A Series of Small Maneuvers
By Lisa Britton
Go! Magazine
W
hen Eliot Treichel worked
at the Eugene Public
Library, he brought home lots of
books to his daughter.
And he noticed a trend: so
many books told the story of
“boy saves girl.”
“I wanted to write something
against that,” he said.
“A Series of Small Maneu-
vers,” a young adult novel he
published in 2015, is the very
antithesis — it is, instead, the
story of a teenage girl who
experiences an unimaginable
tragedy and must save herself.
He started the book in 2013
when his daughter was a young
teenager. The next year he was
accepted for a fellowship at
Fishtrap in Enterprise.
“That year’s theme had
something to do with rivers and
water,” Treichel said.
I recently read “Small Maneu-
vers” when it was mentioned in
Treichel’s biography for the on-
line writing workshop he taught
this month through Fishtrap.
Here’s the synopsis from the
back cover:
“After the devastating loss of
her father on a canoe trip meant
to bring them closer together,
fi fteen-year-old Emma Wilson
fi nds herself alone on the river in
the southwestern desert.”
I chuckled through the fi rst
few chapters, often reading
passages aloud to my kids, who
are well accustomed to outdoor
adventures and could identify
with Emma, the main character.
For instance: “Our hike was
going to take longer than the half
day he’d said it would, because
they always did.”
And: “We were leaving to go
look for an old homesteader’s
cabin that my dad had read
about on some online forum.”
Not long into the novel,
though, Emma experiences the
immense loss of her father and
through sheer will she must navi-
gate the river on her own to fi nd
civilization and help.
Emma captured my heart.
She is a strong-willed teenager
who must learn how to navigate
her new reality where no one
Lisa Britton/Go! Magazine
https://eliottreichel.com/
Eliot Treichel
can quite understand what she
experienced on that river.
Treichel grew up in Wisconsin,
and attended Prescott College in
Arizona. He is now on the English
faculty at Yakima Valley College
in Yakima, Washington.
His fi rst real job was being a
whitewater kayak instructor.
His pursuit of writing came by
chance at Prescott when one of
his classes was canceled, and
his friend suggested a creative
writing class instead.
“Something clicked in that
class,” Treichel said. “I had a
tremendous teacher.”
The idea for his novel came
during a multi-day backpacking
trip in the Grand Canyon when
he encountered a family hiking
with two small girls.
“That got me thinking about
kids in the wilderness — what if
the parents got hurt?” he said.
While writing the novel, he
said he “did what fi ction writers
do: imagine things and empa-
thize with the characters.”
He set the story on a river
t
sco oo u k n s on a ly)
i
d
0% d b ing
because, he said, “I’m not good
with plot.”
“If you start someone at the
start of the river, they have to get
to the end,” he said.
Treichel published a short
story collection prior to “Small
Maneuvers,” and has a new book
in the works.
He also may return to Emma’s
story.
“I’m eager to have more stuff
out in the world,” he said. “I will
go back to Emma at some point
and see where she is.”
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