Fabulous Fiction Firsts #359

Sun, 10/07/2012 - 2:31pm by muffy

Wednesday, October 10th at 7pm, author Peter Geye will be at Nicola's for a discussion and signing of his new novel The Lighthouse Road * , in which a young immigrant woman in 1890s Duluth, finds herself alone in a new country, abandoned and adrift. In the early 1920s, her orphan son, now grown, falls in love with the one woman he shouldn't and uses his best skills to build them their own small ark to escape. "Peter Geye has crafted another deeply moving tale of a misbegotten family shaped by the rough landscape in which they live--often at the mercy of wildlife and weather."

His first novel Safe from the Sea (in audio, nicely performed by David Aaron Baker), is "an archetypal story of a father and son, of the tug and pull of family bonds, (and) of Norwegian immigrant culture". Antique map-dealer Noah Torrs reluctantly returns from Boston to the lakeside cabin north of Duluth to spend time with his estranged father Olaf, who is dying. Once a curmudgeonly, headstrong ship's captain, and one of three survivors from the coal freighter Ragnarok that sank on Lake Superior, Olaf is still haunted after 35 years by the memory a friend he felt he could have saved and the catastrophic repercussions for his young family.

"Geye tackles the subjects of death, dying, and living with admirable insight and courage." For readers who enjoy David Guterson, Robert Olmstead , and Canadians Joseph Boyden and Stef Penney.

A Minnesota native, Peter Geye ( webiste) received his Ph.D. from Western Michigan University , where he taught Creative Writing and was editor of Third Coast.

* = starred review