BOOKMONGER
A witness
to the cold
David Guterson’s novel “Snow
Falling on Cedars” may have landed
him a place on the literary map, and
the New York Times bestseller list
back in 1994, but it is his contin-
ued attention to Northwest themes
and stories, coupled with his matur-
ing sense of nuance since that early
blockbuster, that has established him
as such an intriguing regional writer.
“The Final Case,” his first novel
in over a decade, borrows many
details from a shocking 2011 inci-
dent that happened in Sedro-Wool-
ley, Washington. Hana Williams, an
Ethiopian girl who had been adopted
into a large Christian family, died
of hypothermia right outside of her
home, while the rest of the family
stood inside, watching her. It was
apparent that Hana was malnour-
ished and physically abused before
her death. Williams’ parents, who
justified their harsh disciplinary mea-
sures as necessary training to raise
righteous, God fearing children, were
taken to trial, convicted and given
decadeslong sentences.
Guterson attended their trial.
Now, nearly 10 years later, he has
written “The Final Case.” The name-
less, aging narrator in his novel also
is an author. And that narrator ends
up attending a trial that contains
many strikingly similar elements of
Williams’ tragedy. It happens this
way, the narrator is virtually retired,
by virtue of the fact that he sim-
ply has stopped going into the room
where he used to write.
The narrator’s dad, on the other
hand, is an octogenarian attorney
who still goes into the office every
day with his briefcase and his bran
flakes, despite the fact that the tele-
phone seldom rings for him any-
more. But one day the telephone
does ring. It is the public defender’s
office in Skagit County, which has
run out of available public defend-
18 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
This week’s book
‘The Final Case’ by David Guterson
Knopf – 272 pp — $27
ers and needs someone to represent a
woman being accused of the murder
of her adopted child.
The attorney asks his son to drive
him up Interstate 5 to the Skagit
County jail so that he can meet with
his new client. And so begins the
narrator’s immersion into the sad
and sordid details of the case. While
there is plenty of courthouse proce-
dural in this book, this novel is about
much more. Guterson and his narra-
tor, in both metaphorical and physi-
cal driver’s seats, exercise license to
take plenty of detours.
Into not only the pleasures of tea
culture, for example, but also the
nasty imperialist abuses of the tea
trade. (The narrator’s sister owns a
teahouse.) Into the Ethiopian crisis,
into home ownership (“a series of
staying actions against ruin”), briefly
into exploding head syndrome, and
into the world of fiction writers who
grapple with insecurity, absurdity
and cynicism as they court relevance
or revelation in the crafting of some-
thing out of nothing.
And yet Guterson perseveres, per-
haps invoking one of his own early
influences, novelist John Gardner, as
our nameless narrator sits “in a slant of
commodious October light” and con-
templates both the appalling tragedy
and the sustaining love of the human
race. “The Final Case” is a gracefully
written, deeply affecting novel.
The Bookmonger is Barbara Lloyd
McMichael, who writes this weekly
column focusing on books, authors
and publishers of the Pacific North-
west. Contact her at barbaralmcm@
gmail.com.
‘The Final Case’ is by David Guterson.