4A • August 10, 2018 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com
Views from the Rock
EVE MARX
There’s nothing like a walk on Cannon Beach, in any
weather.
FILE PHOTO
Author Brian Doyle and local fantasy novelist Terry Brooks at the 2014 Get Lit at the Beach. At the evening’s dinner,
Watt Childress recalled Terry Brooks called “Mink River” “one of the best books I’ve ever read.”
A timeless author, discovered too late
I
like to think “better late than never”
when it comes to discovering an
author.
Brian Doyle died at 60 in May 2017,
only months after he won an Oregon
Book Award for his novel “Martin
Marten.”
Doyle was a former New Yorker, the
son of a newspaperman and a teacher
who made his mark in this state and
dedicated himself largely to its wonders
on the coast and elsewhere.
A former editor of the University of
Portland’s Portland Magazine, Doyle
was nominated for the Oregon Book
Award nine times and finally won in
2016 for his young adult novel “Martin
Marten.” As deeply as his characters
correlate their lives with his fiction
debut, “Mink River,” Doyle affiliated
himself with the Oregon Coast, espe-
cially the North Coast, promoting and
sharing his work at Get Lit at the Beach,
the city’s signature literary gathering.
Doyle was an advocate for young
people, providing workshops for
students in Cannon Beach, Seaside and
Astoria.
Watt Childress of Jupiter’s Books
called Doyle a “masterful, lyrical writer,
with a heart the size of Mount Hood.”
In a 2014 reading, Doyle “relayed
stories like prayers,” Childress said.
At the same event, Cannon Beach’s
internationally renowned novelist Terry
Brooks called Doyle “one of the best
writers he’s ever read.”
This week, Childress compared
Doyle to the singer/songwriter Van
Morrison. “Somehow I think of them
in tandem. When you mention the
lyricism. There’s just so much feeling
packed in there. Damn! The good folks
just don’t live long enough.”
‘Just sit down and play’
I chose “Mink River” out of all
Doyle’s books, essays and poetry after
randomly pulling it off the library shelf.
I was so enthralled I bought a
hardbound, used edition for myself,
coincidentally signed by the author
“To David.” (David, wherever you are,
shame on you for parting with this auto-
graphed edition!)
“Mink River” takes you on an inner
trail, a serpent’s tail that pulls at the con-
nections in your mind, paints a multilay-
ered canvas and provides raw material
for a fellow writer’s toolkit, which is
never full enough.
Ottesa Moshfegh, a young writer
profiled in The New Yorker in July,
wrote: “Writing to me, is more musical
than I think it is literary a lot of the time
— the way that a voice can sound and
the way that it leads the reader in a sort
of virtual reality, a journey through its
own consciousness.”
Doyle could have easily said the
same.
“Don’t think when you write,” Doyle
said at Get Lit. “Your head is probably
Brian Doyle
CANNON SHOTS
R.J. MARX
your worst enemy. Just sit down and
play. And listen to what needs to be
said.”
Writing, he said, is “taking an idea
out for a walk.”
In “Mink River,” Doyle doesn’t
walk, he runs. The setting is the fictional
Oregon Coast town of Neawanaka, a
hybrid name like Ursula K. Le Guin’s
fictional “Seaview,” another tribute to
our shores.
“I have visited the coast very often,”
Doyle said in a 2011 interview with the
Gazette’s Erin Bernard. “Central and
north, and wanted very much to sing
and celebrate the hard brave sweet wet
wild life there; one of the most delicious
comments I have had was from a reader
on the coast who said this book is true to
life here; that to me was a great honor.
I so wanted it to be true fiction, you
know?”
For this reader, what strikes me most
is the book’s mournful prose.
Deep, drenching sadness that im-
merses us in not only the rich outdoor
lives of coastal Oregonians in the
fictional city of Neawanaka, but leads us
into an epidermal layer of pain, sadness
and loss.
What more can we ask from a writer
than to say he has changed the way we
look at the world around us?
Doyle reaches more to William
Butler Yeats and Dylan Thomas than
American authors like John Updike
or John Cheever, exquisite interior
monologuists both. Perhaps it is the Irish
brogue that permeates the characters of
the O’Donnell clan, an unforgettable lin-
eage descended from the unforgettable
Red Hugh, “a master curser who starts
cursing before he even gets out of bed.”
Red Hugh can still get a “good burst”
going, Doyle writes, “although he can’t
sustain an hour’s worth of snarling
invective like he could in the old days.”
Doyle’s fabulous crow, Moses, a
full-blown, walking, talking, flying
character, possesses the gift of speech,
which he puts to good use in aiding and
abetting the life and well-being of the
residents of Neawanaka. Moses makes
“Jonathan Livingston Seagull” look like
a pipsqueak.
Even the bears and creatures of the
forest are given full throat. Witness the
bear and her two cubs as they “trundle
in rugged parade order, fascinated by
bees and berries.”
Doyle’s legacy
Doyle is as plaintive as the ouzels
he portrays — festive singing water
birds — among the crawdads and water
striders. His narration blurs the line be-
SIGNET CLASSICS
“Mink River,” by Brian
Doyle, subject of an
upcoming Cannon Beach
Reads
discussion.
tween human and animal conscious-
ness to the point where nature itself is
communicating, reminding us of the
chirping, mewing and mooing around
us — the language of animals.
The sentences are long, lingering,
reciting lists but never listing, with a
cascade of revelations ending with a
punch line to the gut.
Childress guided me to another work
by Doyle, “Spirited Men: Story, Soul
and Substance.” The 2004 collection is
notable for its profile of Van Morrison
(which will send you scrambling to
YouTube for live clips of the great and
soulful rocker); contemplations of the
alto saxophonist Paul Desmond; and
an exploration of the clerical themes of
20th-century novelist Graham Greene.
Doyle, like Greene, was a master
of many genres, a literary omnivore,
capable of dissecting a wolverine; ap-
preciating and one-upping a quick wit or
appraising a pinot noir. Such writers are
all too rare in any decade.
Reading his tales of death, loneliness,
love and natural magic, I am grateful for
the legacy of work he left behind.
“People ask for him,” Childress said.
“But not enough. Maybe his name has
not risen to the point where people are
requesting him as much as he deserves.
He’s the kind of person that’s going to
be here and stick around, and people are
going to come back again and again to
read and enjoy.”
“Mink River” will be the featured
work of Cannon Beach Reads, a pro-
gram from the Cannon Beach Library
on Sept. 19.
The best of
both worlds
L
ast week, shortly after we returned from a brief
trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico, we drove to our
favorite beach access in Tolovana Park to walk
along the strand. The walk wasn’t planned. I was carrying
my handbag, something I ordinarily don’t like to do on a
beach walk. The original idea was to grab a coffee at Sea
Level and maybe hit Fresh Foods before going home to
laundry and tidying up the garden. It’s shocking how you
can be gone just a few days and come home to a ton of
weeds. Perhaps it was the wish to postpone weeding and
laundry folding that prompted my suggestion we walk to
Haystack Rock.
It had been hot in Santa Fe. They were experiencing a
heat wave. While I anticipated it to be warm, I thought we
might be able do a bit more exploring on foot beyond the
historic plaza, but
it was too hot to
walk. In the morn-
VIEW FROM
ing we hoofed
THE PORCH
it a few blocks
EVE MARX
to Iconik Coffee
Roasters on Gal-
isteo Street (they
have two other locations, one on Guadalupe and another
on Lena Street) before wandering in and out of shops. In
the afternoons we made our way to La Casa Sena for a
Marble Brewery beer (that’s an Albuquerque brewer) and
split a BLTA sandwich — red chile honey bacon, green
leaf lettuce, tomato, avocado and chile aioli on a toasted
buttermilk sourdough bun. Then it was back to the hotel
pool to chill out until dinner. One afternoon we hit Ten
Thousand Waves, a beautiful and serene Japanese spa,
where we lounged in our private hot tub replete with sauna
and plunge pool, but my original intention to hike a bit or
ride a horse was out of the question given the 90-degree
temps.
It was cool in Cannon Beach, cool enough for a jacket.
The shoreline was enveloped in thick fog. Walking north,
towards Haystack Rock, we passed a few people; some
rode balloon tire bikes; some pushed their old or tiny dogs
in canine strollers; a 70-something couple were holding
hands. I could not help but notice I was the only person
barefoot. (I carried my Minnetonka moccasins in my
hand.) I’m a person who likes to feel the sand on her soles
and between her toes. To me, that’s what the beach is for.
The Rock was surprisingly unpeopled. Perhaps it
was the early hour. I posted a picture on Facebook and a
Gearhart friend asked if it was Photoshopped. It was not.
We stood beside it for a few minutes, thinking our private
thoughts. The roar of the surf discouraged conversation.
Turning back toward Tolovana Park, the fog was so thick
you couldn’t see five feet in front of you. I liked that.
I enjoyed Santa Fe and really appreciated the food see-
ing how the North Coast is a little short on New Mexican.
At a divine little place in Santa Fe on Hickox Street, Mr.
Sax had a flat iron steak with grilled green chiles, pico
de gallo, guacamole and fresh whole pintos. I had a soft
shell crab sandwich minus the bun with a salad of mixed
greens, roasted beets, peaches, and chevre. In a perfect
world, I could dine in Santa Fe, followed up by a dusk
stroll on Cannon Beach, splashing my feet in sea water as
chilly as that spa’s plunge pool.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
MONDAY, Aug. 13
Cannon Beach Rural Fire Protec-
tion District, 6 p.m., 188 Sunset,
Cannon Beach.
TUESDAY, Aug. 14
Cannon Beach City Council, 5:30
p.m., work session, City Hall, 163
E. Gower St.
THURSDAY, Aug. 16
Parks and Community Services
Committee, 9 a.m., City Hall, 163
E. Gower St.
Cannon Beach Design Review
Board Meeting, 6 p.m., City Hall,
163 E. Gower St.
TUESDAY, Aug. 21
Cannon Beach Public Works
Committee, 9 a.m., City Hall, 163
E. Gower St.
THURSDAY, Aug. 23
Cannon Beach Planning Com-
mission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 163 E.
Gower St.
TUESDAY, Sept. 4
Cannon Beach City Council, 5:30
p.m., City Hall, 163 E. Gower St.
Better options needed when considering city’s parking woes
I
n the more than 10 years that
I have lived in Cannon Beach,
it seems to me that the primary
focus of our local government has
been to improve the lot of our local
merchants. They have advertised
and helped to build (through the
Chamber of Commerce and others) a
variety of activities and festivals that
draw tourists from all over the world.
We, the folks who live in Cannon
Beach, are now paying a pretty
heavy price for their success.
Publisher
Kari Borgen
Editor
R.J. Marx
Circulation
Manager
Jeremy Feldman
Production
Manager
John D. Bruijn
MAKING WAVES
JOHN HUISMANN
During weekends and even some
weekdays, it is very difficult to get
around this town because of the
traffic. Folks park all around our
homes and sometimes even in our
driveways. The parked cars have
Advertising Sales
Holly Larkins
Classified Sales
Danielle Fisher
Staff writer
Brenna Visser
Contributing
writers
Rebecca Herren
Katherine Lacaze
Eve Marx
Nancy McCarthy
become so thick in midtown that it
would be almost impossible to get a
fire truck down some streets. Is this
really the way that we want to live
here in Cannon Beach? I don’t know
about you, but I certainly don’t.
So, what is the solution? It’s pret-
ty obvious. We need to have a place
to park cars for those who are day
visitors. Along with that, we need to
strictly enforce all parking laws and
have a fleet of vans or small buses to
provide transportation around town.
CANNON BEACH GAZETTE
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I realize that this is a radical
suggestion. It ranks right up there
with constructing a bypass for U.S.
Highway 101. Does anyone remem-
ber? Highway 101 used to go right
through our little town. Since the
bypass was constructed, life has got-
ten much better here. Seaside missed
a great opportunity to do the same a
few years back.
It was a totally different idea to
have traffic be able to bypass our
little town. I’m sure that at the time
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there was plenty of concern on the
part of the merchants. The net result
for all of us was a much more livable
town. Cannon Beach has certainly
become more popular since then.
We have the responsibility of
sharing our great natural beauty
with the rest of the world. What we
do not have to do is make this place
unpleasant for the people who live
here. Unfortunately, this has already
happened. The question now is what
are we going to do about it?
THE NATIONAL AWARD-WINNING