BOOKMONGER
Revisiting vintage
Northwest literature
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Peter Donahue of Winthrop, Washing-
ton, is not only a novelist, he’s a literary
historian. From 2005 to 2018, Donahue
researched and wrote 55 columns on early
authors of the Pacifi c Northwest. These
“Retrospective Reviews” were published
by Columbia Magazine, a quarterly publi-
cation of the Washington State Historical
Society.
The bulk of the columns have been
brought together and published in the
new paperback “Salmon Eaters to
Sagebrushers.”
The book’s evocative title derives from
the late Nard Jones’ brash declaration of
identity in the middle of the last century.
Born in Washington state, Jones spent
nearly a decade of his youth in Oregon,
then worked as a news correspondent in
Walla Walla, Washington, and later as an
editorial writer in Seattle.
“I remain unregenerate, a Salmon
Eater, an Apple Knocker, a Rain Wor-
shipper, a Sagebrusher, and a Whistle
Punk from the Big Woods. In brief, a
Pacifi c Northwesterner,” he declared.
Jones was also a prolifi c writer of fi c-
tion. Over his career he saw a dozen of
his novels published, along with hundreds
of short stories. Jones wrote in exacting
detail about wheat farmers and steamboat
pilots, loggers and old-style gumshoes. He
painted vivid word-pictures of the Colum-
bia River before it was dammed and the
city of Seattle before it had the Space
Needle.
And yet — how many people are aware
of Jones’ impressive legacy today?
This is where Donahue comes in —
refreshing the memory of vintage works
of Northwest literature. Not all of them
are high-brow, but they are nonetheless
potent conveyors of earlier times and man-
ners, and industries that gradually ceded to
other ways of life.
In these pieces, Donahue focuses exclu-
sively on works that have gone out of
print. For every author Donahue profi les,
he supplies a substantial passage from
This Week’s Book
“Salmon Eaters to Sagebrushers”
By Peter Donahue
Washington State University Press — 268 pp
— $26.95
one of their works. And despite the fact
that these story fragments are at least half
a century old, they vibrate with pent-up
energy.
We’re drawn back into a world where
suffragists fi ght for women’s rights. Fire
lookouts scan the horizon for smoke.
Orchardists and wheat growers fret about
their crops. Lightship crew members han-
ker for shore leave while tending to their
repetitive chores on a ship that remains
anchored just off the coast.
Lest we think we are the fi rst genera-
tion to consider the diversity of the soci-
ety we live in, Donahue can point you to
the empathetic works of Patricia Camp-
bell, Christine Quintasket (Mourning
Dove), and Alan Hart, who was a medical
researcher-turned-novelist and a transgen-
der male.
Even Zola Ross, known for her histor-
ical romances, did not whitewash reali-
ties such as the region’s racist mobs who
forcefully expelled Chinese residents.
Labor issues, industrialization,
encroaching development — all of these
were dealt with by earlier generations of
writers and consumed by earlier genera-
tions of readers.
Now offered as a compilation, these
essays reveal a sameness of format that
probably wasn’t obvious when read as
originally intended. That’s a minor quibble
easily dealt with — take your time in read-
ing them.
The Bookmonger is Barbara Lloyd
McMichael, who writes this weekly col-
umn focusing on the books, authors and
publishers of the Pacifi c Northwest. Con-
tact her at bkmonger@nwlink.com.