july recommendations-an incident-east of the mountains

East of the Mountains by David Guterson


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Ben Givens is a retired surgeon with a terminal diagnosis of colon cancer. He decides to leave this earth on his own terms and skip the final months of pain. So he sets out across the Cascades in Washington state for a hunting trip, planning to take his own life once he reaches the high desert. A car crash en route puts an initial crimp in this suicide mission. But he presses onward--and begins a simultaneous journey into the past. Between present-tense episodes, which demonstrate Ben's cranky commitment to his own extinction, we learn about his boyhood in Washington's apple country, his traumatic war experience in the Italian Alps, and the beginning of his vocation. A coming of age novel for those of us who think we are already grown up.


View all my reviews >>