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BOOKSHELF
By RYAN HUME
Just finished
“Our Love Will Go the
Way of the Salmon” by
Cameron Pierce
Broken River Books,
2015
Plot Notes: Through 15 stories,
we fish across the west and east:
from Bakersfield, California, to the
Columbia River Bar and far beyond.
In the title story, a down-on-his-luck
40-something takes his disabled
grandmother to his childhood fish-
ing hole. We meet a wounded G.I.
who finds more than just healing
when a Vietnamese catfish farm-
er takes him in during the war. We
watch as a bass fisherman’s wife
unzips her human skin to reveal that
she is in fact a human-sized bass.
And we see, more than once, a really
creepy fish-human hybrid that just
needs your help.
Take Away: Early editions of
Richard Brautigan’s seminally zany
“Trout Fishing in America” came
with this missive on the back cover,
attributed to The Viking Press: “Mr.
Brautigan submitted a book to us in
1962 called TROUT FISHING IN AMER-
ICA. I gather from the reports that it
was not about trout fishing.” Well,
Mr. Pierce’s new collection is about
fishing, but be forewarned: These are
not your dad’s fishing stories unless
maybe your dad is Japanese fabulist
Haruki Murakami. Pierce, who comes
from the bizarro brand of fiction,
knows his fishing, and certainly has
no trouble wielding the weird in this
collection. When it works best, and
it often does, in stories like “Sway,”
“Short of Lundy” and “The Incoming
Tide,” the weird disarms characters
and story structure, warping events
into raw emotion. When the weird
remains too situational, it tends to
fall a little flat.
Recommended For: Psychedel-
ic fishermen, mollusk hunters, fans
of Ron Carlson and Richard Brauti-
gan, brawlers, trawlers and lovers .
Bonus: Pierce, who lives with
his wife in Astoria, is author of 10
other works of fiction as well as
editor of three anthologies, includ-
ing “In Heaven, Everything is Fine,”
which features numerous cult fiction
writers — including Thomas Ligot-
ti, Kevin Sampsell and Blake Butler
— riffing off the cinematic world of
David Lynch. Worth the price of ad-
mission alone for Amelia Gray’s won-
derful story, “These Are The Fables.”
Other books
“All the Light
We Cannot See”
by Anthony Doerr
Scribner, 2014
“Evolution of the
Genus Iris: Poems” by
Robert Michael Pyle
University of Washing-
ton Press, 2014
NW
word
nerd
By RYAN HUME
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Recommended by: Brenda
Osborn of Godfather’s Books and
Espresso in Astoria
Local poetry: Pyle is a Yale-ed-
ucated ecologist, poet and the au-
thor of 14 books, who has made
his home in southwest Washington
for a number of years. Part of what
drew Osborn’s endorsement is Pyle’s
ability to distill our local landscape
through the specificity of his scien-
tific background.
Recommend for: “Nature lov-
ers,” Osborn said. “Or anyone with a
deep appreciation of the Northwest.”
noun
1. Pseudotsuga menziesii: Of
a genus including six species
reaching as far as eastern Asia,
this tall, slender evergreen co-
nifer is the only one native to
western North America. One of
the most popular commercial
timber resources, an individual
tree can reach the average age
of 500 years. While not a true fi r
tree, which is signifi ed by the
hyphenation in its common
name, it has also been called
the Oregon pine, the Douglas
spruce, the Washington fi r and
more.
Origin:
The common name came
about in the mid-19th century
and is attributed to the Scot-
tish botanist David Douglas,
who wrote about the trees in
his journal in 1825. The Latin
genus, Pseudotsuga, literally
means “false hemlock,” while
the epithet, menziesii, honors
Archibald Menzies, another
Scotsman, surgeon and rival
botanist to Douglas, who fi rst
recorded the species in 1791
while on Vancouver Island
during an expedition with Capt.
Vancouver.
“The legislative session, 1938–39, adopted
a resolution making the Douglas fi r the state
tree of Oregon. This is the eighth state to adopt
an offi cial tree. The Douglas fi r was named for
David Douglas, the Scotch botanist who came to
Oregon fi rst in 1825. He describes the tree in his
Journal April 28, 1825, the day he crossed the bar
of the Columbia River.”
— Nellie B. Pipes, “News and Comment,” Oregon
Historical Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 2, June 1939, p. 208
“David Douglas (1798–1834) is one of the
best known nineteenth century botanical explor-
ers of the American West. His exploits have been
told in a myriad of books, articles, and television
programs. His death in a bull pit on the Hawaiian
Islands has long been regarded as a tragedy. In
the Pacifi c states, his name lives. Rivers, counties,
and an array of fl owering plants and animals
carry his name, and the West’s single most im-
portant lumber tree, Douglas-fi r, is a constant
reminder that he was a part of our past.”
— James L. Reveal, “Points of View: On the Mod-
ern Death of David Douglas,” Madroño, Vol. 36, No. 2,
April-June 1989, p. 137
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1004 Commercial St.,
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503-325-4400
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Recommended by: Maureen
Dooley-Sroufe of Cannon Beach Book
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Inventive and beautiful: This
National Book Award-nominated
World War II-set novel was a staff and
customer favorite. “This was probably
our favorite novel of the year,” Dool-
ey-Sroufe said. Doerr, who often visits
Cannon Beach in the summer, crafted
a “gorgeously written” novel sure to
hook any serious reader.
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February 5, 2015 | coastweekend.com | 19