The daily Astorian., March 21, 2019, Page 19, Image 18

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2019 // 19
BOOKMONGER
Bawdy romp ensnares gods,
monsters and humans
Witty, inventive
‘The Alehouse
at the End of the
World’ reimagines
old stories
Forest Avenue Press, the
Portland press that, in its
own words, “publishes liter-
ary fiction on a joyride,” has
done it again with the pub-
lication of Stevan Allred’s
randy, rollicking new novel,
“The Alehouse at the End of
the World.”
You’ll know you are in
the hands of a master sto-
ryteller and consummate
wordsmith with the first sen-
tence: “The fisherman lived
alone at the edge of the sea,
in a shack beneath the shade
of the tallest shore pine for
leagues, on a bluff above a
shallow cove.” The lulling
effect of all of those fricative
“sh” words instantly sets the
tone. It’s time to settle in for
an epical tale.
The marooned fisher-
man has received a mysteri-
ously delivered letter. It con-
tains unwelcome news: His
beloved has died. But on her
deathbed, the letter says, she
vowed to wait for him on the
Isle of the Dead.
Stricken with remorse
that he hadn’t returned to her
earlier, and with rekindled
hope that he may now have
a chance to reunite with her,
the fisherman sets off across
the sea in his skiff.
Inconveniently, a storm
comes up and he is swal-
lowed by a whale.
This is only one of many
times that Allred borrows
elements from other sto-
ries and songs, and sprinkles
THIS WEEK’S
BOOK
The Alehouse at the
End of the World
By Stevan Allred
“THE ALEHOUSE AT THE END
OF THE WORLD” TRAFFICS IN
THOSE QUESTS THAT SEEM TO
BE ETERNALLY HUMAN: LOVE
VERSUS LOSS, RIGHT VERSUS
WRONG, HOPE VERSUS DESPAIR.
Forest Avenue Press
360 pp
$17.95
them into “Alehouse” with a
wink and a nod.
But he incorporates these
into a fable so fresh and so
sly, so replete with luscious
vocabulary and dirty tricks
and philosophy, so ripe with
love triangles and soulful
clams and sinister corvids,
that it becomes a kind of
scavenger hunt for the reader
to detect these borrowed bits
of whimsy.
Meanwhile, back at the
plot line: After a harrowing
time within the bowels of
the leviathan, the fisherman
washes up on the Isle of the
Dead. He is confronted by a
trio of birds: a bespectacled
cormorant who spouts Latin,
a compassionate pelican with
healing powers and a tyran-
nical crow who fancies him-
self King of the Dead.
With varying levels of
acceptance, the birds allow
the fisherman to stay, even
though he doesn’t qualify as
a typical dead person.
As time goes on, the fish-
erman discovers that all three
birds are demi-deities with
shape-shifting powers. They
help him locate what’s left
of his beloved, but they are
chiefly preoccupied with pla-
cating the gargantuan beast
that has swallowed their
island whole.
Then another visitor
arrives: Dewi Sri. As the
goddess of fertility, her very
presence disrupts the normal
behavior of the island’s den-
izens. She can be serenely
maternal one moment, and
intoxicatingly sensual the
next.
Can these two interlopers
— fisherman and goddess —
help save the Isle of the Dead
from the beast?
Will the fisherman be able
to restore his lost love?
Is collusion at play in
determining control of
the island?
With rapier wit, gleeful
humor and inventive reimag-
ining of storytelling tradi-
tions of yore, “The Alehouse
at the End of the World”
traffics in those quests that
seem to be eternally human:
love versus loss, right versus
wrong, hope versus despair.
The Bookmonger is Bar-
bara Lloyd McMichael, who
writes this weekly column
focusing on the books, authors
and publishers of the Pacific
Northwest. Contact her at
bkmonger@nwlink.com.
Crossword Answers
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Forest Avenue Press
The cover of Stevan Allred’s novel ‘The Alehouse at the End of
the World.’