"A palimpsest of old logging roads and game trails"

I met a lumberjack once. He lived in Oregon, sported an impressive beard, and ate vegan store brand Oreo’s. He recounted the dangers of his job - among them the brutal exposure to the elements on a daily basis.  

Peter Geye captures the brutality and desperation of men who worked in the lumber camps at the turn of the century. His novel The Lighthouse Road is set in 1890s and 1920s Minnesota. It follows the immigration of a young woman from Norway who finds work as a cook in the lumber camp.  She gives birth to a son. After her death, her son Odd is adopted by the town. When he’s older, he supports himself as a fisherman.  Odd falls in love with a woman who knew his mother and eventually learns the truth behind her death even as he’s facing the reality of raising his own son alone.

In the tradition of books by Annie Proulx, Jim Harrison, Charles Frazier, and Jeffrey Lent, The Lighthouse Road explores the effects of one’s environment on family, identity, and survival.  Its characters build boats by hand, travel by dog sled, fight wolves, and survive Atlantic crossings on one jar of sheep’s milk. With a spare yet vivid writing style, Geye captures a harsh reality that is both appalling and appealing. 

Not unlike a vegan Oreo.