Legends of the North Cascades

April 12, 2021
Evison (Lawn Boy) delivers an intimate if uneven story of grief and parenthood with characters from two distant millennia. After onetime football hero Dave Cartwright returns to Vigilante Falls, Wash., from his third and worst tour in Iraq with the Marines, he struggles to reacquaint himself with civic and domestic life. The sudden death of his wife, Nadene, makes Dave ever more disillusioned, prompting him to uproot his seven-year-old daughter, Bella, to a cave in the Cascades. As days stretch to weeks and months and winter closes in, Bella starts having visions of the Paleolithic people who once populated the area. Chapters about an Ice Age mother and child alternate with Dave and Bella's increasingly perilous situation and with gossip about Dave conveyed through interstitial monologues from various folks back home. The parallel narratives of familial trust and parent-child conflicts among the ancient people and between Dave and Bella develop effectively in tandem, though the idea of some kind of psychic connection between this young girl and her Ice Age predecessors feels strained. Moreover, Evison's judgmental modern-day townspeople are unbelievably openhearted and endlessly forgiving, even after Dave's actions endanger Bella and others. Despite its faults, Evison's empathetic vision offers much to consider about the limits of parental authority and the capacity for both physical and emotional survival.

Starred review from May 1, 2021
Evison's (Lawn Boy, 2018) majestic and panoramic latest conjures the beauty, power, and unforgiving nature of the Cascade Mountains in alternating narratives separated by thousands of years. Former marine and Iraq War vet Dave Cartwright has had trouble assimilating back into society. The once promising high-school football star was passed over for college scholarships and viewed the marines as his best hope. After three tours, however, Dave is bitter and resentful, haunted by the horrors he has witnessed and the actions he and his fellow soldiers were ordered to take. Dave's PTSD has caused an irreparable rift in his marriage, and when his wife dies in a car accident, Dave is left to raise their seven-year-old daughter, Bella, alone. Evison brilliantly crafts Dave's acute psychological struggle as he decides to drop out of society and raise Bella in a cave high up in the mountains. Soon, Bella begins to channel the spirit of a young mother, S'tka, who lived there at the end of the last ice age. These twin narratives provide parallel themes of survival and resilience in treacherous environs. Evison masterfully delivers subtle yet pointed commentary on how society marginalizes veterans and how we profess to admire yet distrust the individualist ethos while also offering a profound meditation on the human spirit.

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March 1, 2021

Struggling to reenter life back home in Vigilante Falls, WA, Iraq vet Dave Cartwright flees a tragedy with beloved seven-year-old daughter Bella and settles with her in a cave in the North Cascades wilderness. Their story parallels and eventually merges with that of a mother and son who lived in the same cave as the last Ice Age wound down. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

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