BOOKMONGER
‘Th e Canyon Cuts Both Ways’
Stories confront wild and resilient nature of canyon life
BY BARBARA LLOYD MCMICHAEL
North Santiam Canyon, in the Cascade
m ountains east of Salem, has been gut-
punched by wildfi re over the past year.
The Beachie Creek and Lionshead fi res
combined to scorch more than 400,000
acres and destroy more than 700 homes in
September.
About 200 fi refi ghters are back in the
canyon this summer, trying to get a hold
on yet another blaze called the Bruler fi re.
Experts estimate they won’t reach total con-
tainment of the fi re until the end of August.
The ensuing road and trail closures are hit-
ting the small communities in the canyon
hard, as summer recreation is a vital part of
the local economy.
In that context, I picked up “The Canyon
Cuts Both Ways” last week, a collection of
short stories set in North Santiam Canyon.
Author Dan T. Cox grew up there in the
1950s and 1960s, eventually leaving for col-
lege in Eugene and later retiring across the
Columbia River in Ridgefi eld, Washington.
To paraphrase the old adage, “you can take
the boy out of North Santiam Canyon, but
you can’t take the canyon out of the boy.”
Cox’s stories refl ect on the lives of peo-
ple who fi nd themselves in a place where
the opportunities are defi ned by big trees
and small communities. These sly tales
blend the same old with the calamitous, the
dreams with the disappointments. They are
layered with unfl inching observation and
compassion.
The canyon is a place where some char-
acters like Ruthie the bartender, or Lyle
the unemployed deer hunter have come to
accept their lot in life. Other characters like
the deputy sheriff worry, “Is this it for me?”
But still others stumble upon confi dence that
they never knew they had.
Such agency manifests in the open-
ing story, “King Bean,” when a long-sim-
mering rivalry between brothers involving
green beans — and more — combusts into
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This week’s
book
‘The Canyon Cuts
Both Ways’ by Dan
T. Cox
Trooper Books —
218 pp — $14 or
$2.99 on Kindle
fi sticuff s.
It shows up
again even more
forcefully in
a piece called
“No Bears Out
Tonight,” when
another pair of
brothers takes
care of a problem
that had been
silently corrod-
ing the larger
community.
In this and other sto-
ries, some characters invoke comeuppance
as a grim cautionary device regarding the
importance of right living. But most of the
tales decline to provide easy closure.
In fact, many of these characters carry
on, perhaps appearing once as the main
character, and other times showing up as
someone in the background. They may
be part of the volunteer fi re department or
holding down a barstool at the local water-
ing hole. At least one character from Cox’s
previous book of stories, “A Bigger Piece of
Blue,” also returns in this book.
Cox makes sure that the landscape fi g-
ures prominently in these stories. He
includes the steep
slopes to the deep forests to the raging
Santiam River, “a maniacal kaleidoscope
of insane upswells and consumptive whirl-
pools, dancing and slapping itself with an
arrogance that should never be underesti-
mated or dismissed.”
The author does not, however, mention
the recent reality of wildfi re. Perhaps that
will be addressed in his next book?
The Bookmonger is Barbara Lloyd
McMichael, who writes this weekly column
focusing on the books, authors and publish-
ers of the Pacifi c Northwest. Contact her at
barbaralmcm@gmail.com.
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