A4 • Friday, February 1, 2019 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com
SignalViewpoints
How a literary classic emerged
SEEN FROM SEASIDE
Evolution
of a
classic’s
ending
R.J. MARX
A
midst an abundance of qual-
ity Pacifi c Northwest fi c-
tion, Don Berry presents
the most vivid naturalism: bringing
to mind the scent of the woods, the
hollow of a log or the whisper of a
dream.
The writer lived in Gearhart in
the 1950s and ’60s and managed to
capture the essence of the land and
water around him along with the
heritage of the Nehalem, Clatsop
and Killamook people.
The story is almost crude in its
overt simplicity — Elbridge Trask,
a settler on the Clatsop Plains with
his wife Hannah — wants to settle
on farmland to the south to what we
known as Tillamook Bay — then
uncharted territory.
Not a trip to be undertaken
lightly, considered the densely
packed forests, deep crevasses and
tides breaking across the rock.
Trask’s quixotic mission is abet-
ted by two Native Americans, a
holy man or “tanawanis,” and the
ne’er-do-well Wahila who signs on
as guide.
“It is my goal,” Trask tells the
Native American Chief Kilchis,
“to make of this bay one house, of
which we can all live in peace.”
Berry’s descriptions are mag-
nifi cent, painting word images
of the dizzying heights of Neah-
kahnie Mountain to Manzanita and
beyond.
“Five hundred feet below,”
Berry writes, “the surf crashed
against the base of the cliffs with
a thunderous roar, throwing white
water slowly up the side.”
“Jagged spires of rock” point
upward, and the “base of the sheer
slab was a jumble of sharp and
angular pinnacles around which the
surf surged and churned.”
Of the elk who wander the
mountains, “they traveled in amia-
ble companionship, a stark contrast
to the mating season in the fall,
when the bulls would be trumpet-
ing their wild challenges and fi ght-
ing for harems.”
Tillamook Bay is rendered in its
primitive isolation: “There was a
quietness in the air, and the distant
thin screaming of seabirds could be
heard clearly. Flights of gulls began
to wheel over the fl at waters of the
bay in long fl oating arcs.”
Such descriptive prose is worthy
of a thousand pictures.
The narrative is never predict-
able, never a “gee-whiz” Western
— although this was marketed as
a paperback pulp novel in the 60s,
followed by “Moontrap” and “To
Build a Ship.”
A North Coast heritage
In Jeff Baker’s introduction to
the Oregon State University repub-
lishing of the books in 2004, he
describes how Berry wrote the tril-
ogy published between 1960 and
1963 “in a spasm of sustained cre-
ativity unequaled in Oregon lit-
erature. … Berry believed fi ction
By WYN BERRY
For Seaside Signal
Wyn Berry/For Seaside Signal
Don Berry in Gearhart after a trip to France, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
One of his sumi drawings is in the background.
could tell larger truths as effectively
as history.”
Cannon Beach artist Rex Amos
knew Berry as a colleague and
friend. “Don was a painter before
becoming a writer,” Amos said.
Amos knew Berry as a colleague
and friend.
Berry lived in a cabin in Gear-
hart then had a log cabin on the
Nehalem River, Amos recalled.
“One day I dropped in on him and
he came to the door with a bloody
apron on. He had just shot a bear
and was making bear jerky. Long
story there; sort of Hemingwayish.”
Their acquaintance was
launched in the ‘60s, set up by a
mutual friend Friedrich Peters, fi rst
director of Deutsche Sommerschule
am Pazifi k — a German summer
program then in Manzanita and
now offered from Lewis and Clark
College.
John Allen of the Pacifi c Way
Cafe recalled Berry as a legend
in Gearhart. While he never met
Berry, he knew Wyn as a journalist
and erstwhile restaurant server.
Wyn, reached via email from her
home in Vachon Island, Washing-
ton, recalled a happy time in Gear-
hart with family and friends in the
early ’60s.
Don Berry met Gearhart’s Gra-
ham and Bunny Doar while at col-
lege at Reed, and the Doars intro-
duced him to the North Coast.
(Graham Doar was a recognized
TV and science-fi ction author
whose short story “The Outer
Limit” — a “close-encounter” story
written in 1949 — was rewrit-
ten and readapted throughout the
1950s.)
Graham’s daughter, also at
Reed, Wyn Berry said, met Don
at the Reed Bookstore where he
was working, heard him talk about
Seaside Signal
An entry in the Western trilogy with
“Trask” and “To Build a Ship.”
wishing he could talk to a pub-
lished writer, and Jane said, ‘Pops
writes for Saturday Evening Post
and Esquire — why don’t you go
to Gearhart and talk to him?’ He
did, and thus began a long friend-
ship, quickly followed by the addi-
tion of (the Berrys’ children) David,
Bonny, Duncan and myself. Both
Graham and Bunny considered the
kids to be their own grandkids.”
‘Trask” was researched at the
Tillamook County Museum and
written in a barn on a farm in Peach
Cove on the Willamette River, Wyn
Berry recalled. He also wrote the
last chapter in a cabin he built in the
Coast Range forest.
Berry loved the Northwest in all
its rainy glory. He spent many days
wandering or hunting all over Clat-
sop County. He was one-eighth
Native American, Fox, and always
had an affi nity for wildness.”
Berry walked every step of
Wyn Berry, the former wife
of Don Berry, lives on Vachon
Island, Washington. She looks
back on the writing of “Trask,”
and the shaping of its emotional
conclusion.
In the late fall of 1958, we
were living at Peach Cove on the
Willamette River, south of Port-
land, Oregon. We were manag-
ing fi nancially, but barely. Three
kids in the same independent
school, Catlin Gabel, where I
taught, 40 miles away, my salary
our only income. Berry, wrote
obsessively in those years, on
a portable Olivetti typewriter
in the old red barn across the
garden from the Red House in
which we lived.
While preparations were
underway at Viking Press for
Berry’s fi rst novel, “Trask,” to
be published, his agent, Bar-
thold Fles, sent a copy to Read-
ers
Digest’s
owner-editor
Lila Wallace. One day, Berry
received an amazing letter from
her saying she would fl y him to
San Francisco if he’d come and
talk with her about the book.
The possibility of a lucrative
publication with the popular
Digest was truly exciting!
Needless to say, Berry
decided to go and hear what
Mrs Wallace had in mind. This
could be the big break that
every beginning writer dreams
of. With high hopes, I took him
to the airport. He was back the
next day.
“Well, what did she say?
Will she take it?” I pressed, the
moment he got into the car.
whatever way he wrote about, from
Hug Point, in “Trask,” to Sawtooth
Mountain past the Lewis and Clark
River, she said.
He was lucky enough to have
an agent, based on his years’ of
award-winning science fi ction, who
took “Trask” to publishers.
Trask’s contract asked for and
got fi rst refusal on any subsequent
book, and “off he went,” Wyn
Berry said. “He wrote Moontrap in
southern France, collected the gal-
leys in New Zealand, and proofed
them in Hong Kong,” she said.
“Then (he) came home, went to the
cabin, and wrote ‘To Build A Ship,’
again based on early journals. Last
time I looked, his cedar cabin was
still there.”
Don Berry’s books earned
Courtesy Wyn Berry/For Seaside Signal
Wyn Berry at Little Beach in
Gearhart in the 1960s.
“No, she said I had not com-
pleted the story. She wanted me
to add a chapter,” he said tersely,
“I refused. I’ll not change my
writing for anyone. It is as it
stands.”
My heart sank, even though
I respected his standing up for
his principles. So that was that.
Quietly, we drove home.
But almost a year later, Berry
reread his manuscript, went out
to the barn, and all through the
night, bombarded by nesting
peregrine falcons and a young
barn owl, he wrote the glorious
last chapter. “Trask” was in gal-
leys by that time, so he had to
talk Viking into adding it, but
they did.
“Trask,” in the timeless,
profound, popular book it has
become, was published in 1960.
Berry refused to send this fi nal
version to Mrs Wallace. He
could not admit to being wrong,
but he had realized it, and com-
pleted the book after all.
Seaside Signal
“Trask” in its original printing.
immediate recognition by the pub-
lic and critics quickly, she added,
and the author enjoyed the accou-
trements of success: glowing
reviews, writers workshops and
travel.
“Trask” won a Library Guild
Awar; “Moontrap” was nominated
for a National Book Award and
won the Golden Spur Award, given
by the Western Writers of America
for best historical novel that year.
Berry moved on from the area to
develop a long career in Portland,
San Francisco, the Caribbean and
Vashon Island, in a career that is
exotic as it sounds.
Berry gave up writing except on
the internet, Amos said, of which
Berry was considered (appropri-
ately) “a pioneer.”
Thai Me Up, baby, and don’t forget the curry puffs
VIEW FROM
THE PORCH
EVE MARX
hen Mr. Sax and I were
getting to know each
other in New York
City back in the ’80s, a favor-
ite place for lunch was a Thai
restaurant on Ninth Avenue. The
neighborhood was gritty, truth to
tell. The restaurant was a store-
front, family operation on the
street level of a somewhat dilap-
idated apartment building. Our
friend Bill, also a writer, lived in
a small apartment upstairs. Bill,
who appeared to live on ciga-
rettes and beer, didn’t care for
Thai food, which I thought a pity
since this great restaurant was
so near. Mr. Sax and I lunched
without him at the Thai restau-
rant often since it was inexpen-
W
PUBLISHER
EDITOR
Kari Borgen
R.J. Marx
Eve Marx/For Seaside Signal
Chicken curry puff s at Thai Me Up are pretty yum.
sive and had lots of small plates
and pad Thai. It was also conve-
niently located only a block or so
from my offi ce.
CIRCULATION
MANAGER
PRODUCTION
MANAGER
Jeremy Feldman
John D. Bruijn
ADVERTISING
SALES
SYSTEMS
MANAGER
April Olsen
Carl Earl
CLASSIFIED
SALES
Danielle Fisher
This area is not bereft of good
Thai food. We felt pretty lucky
when we moved here to fi nd out
about Nisa’s Thai Kitchen in
STAFF WRITER
Brenna Visser
CONTRIBUTING
WRITERS
Skyler Archibald
Eve Marx
Esther Moberg
Jon Rahl
Warrenton, and shortly after Yel-
low Curry Cozy Thai in down-
town Seaside opened up. Now
there is a third Thai restaurant
nearby, the beguilingly named
Thai Me Up in south Seaside.
In addition to terrifi c food
and modest prices, Thai Me Up
shares an important element in
common with our old fave in
New York. Thai Me Up’s owner
is a Thai lady who hails from
New York. She said she started
her business with a food truck in
Portland; asked how she found
her way to the ocean, she smiled
and said, “It was meant to be.”
Sunday afternoons at Thai Me
Up is becoming our winter jam.
We’re working our way through
the menu. Every time, Mr. Sax
tries a different style of wings.
There are eight to choose from.
I’m partial myself to the appetiz-
ers, in particular salad roll with
peanut sauce; coconut shrimp;
and chicken curry puffs. A friend
in Gearhart recommended papaya
salad she described as “spicy, gar-
licky heaven.” She also recom-
mends chili mango wings. The
next time, I’m trying crab fried
rice or fried calamari. There are
plenty of vegetarian choices and
lunch specials are available Mon-
day through Friday 11 a.m. to
3 p.m.
Thai Me Up has a chill,
relaxed ambience, and, at least
for now, no wine or beer license.
You can order Thai iced tea, Thai
iced coffee, Thai lime tea, juice,
hot tea, or soda. To be honest
I’m perfectly happy with water.
It’s healthy and keeps the bill
down.
Thai Me Up is located at
1575 S. Roosevelt Drive in Sea-
side. Hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Closed Wednesdays in winter.
Prefer take out? Call 503-717-
5586. Connect with them on
Facebook or check the menu and
prices at www.thaimeuppdx.com.
Seaside Signal
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