Hope springs

 West of Here, by Jonathan Evison, Corsair, RRP£12.99, 496 pages

In the Pacific Northwest of the United States a run of salmon leap upriver. Coming upon a dam they “beat their silver heads against the concrete time and time again”. The same could be said of American author Jonathan Evison’s human protagonists, who seem set to tread the same ground, cling to the same hopes and make the same mistakes as their ancestors.

Set in the mountains and coast of the Olympic peninsula of Washington State, in the fictional town of Port Bonita, Evison’s uneven but agreeable book follows two strands: that of the pioneer settlers in the late 19th century, and that of their descendants in the early 21st century.

In the earlier part, Ethan Thornburgh, a silver-tongued ne’er-do-well, arrives in the muddy frontier town whose prospects seem as hopeless as his own.

The future, however, is breaking into this ancient landscape. Women are shedding their subservient roles, Native American mysticism is being replaced by cold science and all-powerful nature is being challenged. “It’s glorious, it’s endless, it’s up for grabs,” cries Thornburgh, who finds himself the most unlikely prophet of the new age when, clambering through the wilderness seeking a land claim, he is finally struck by one decent idea. Amid the raging river canyons, he will build a dam.

More than 100 years later, the dam, which allowed the town to flourish, is about to be destroyed. Thornburgh’s descendants run the last fish-processing plant in the area and seem just as adrift as their now-famed ancestor once was. Can they too find inspiration in the landscape to change their lives?

Evison paints some fine parallels between the contemporary world and the storied past. Port Bonita in 2006 is equally clogged with poor lodgings, unpursued dreams and sour male virtue. The dam, once seen as the liberating work of the future, now seems as manacling as any Victorian social convention.

In the chapters set in the 19th century, Evison’s characters speak in the well-worn, literate manner that has become familiar in tales of the old West. Indeed many of them, such as Galloping Gertie, the whore with a heart, seem to have drifted in from a dozen other saloons of ill-repute.

Yet despite this, and the sometimes chaotic juggling of differing storylines, it is an enjoyable read partly because Evison, with the huge canvas of the wild mountains as his backdrop, keeps his concerns local. These are the small victories of reinvention that the West – despite its supposed taming – still seems to offer the individual.

Whorehouses may have become Walmarts, drunks may have become druggies, but hope, the pathway to change, remains for ever unchanged.

George Pendle is author of ‘Death: A Life’ (Three Rivers Press)