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October 25, 2012
Peter Geye’s Letter to Readers
October 2012
Dear Reader,
It’s a strange thing to live alone with a cast of characters for the years that it takes to write a novel. Strange to get to know them as intimate friends. To suffer their sadness with them. To revel in their joys. It’s a strangeness I find great satisfaction in. In fact, it’s the reason I write at all.
I’ve never written a character I didn’t have great affinity for in one way or another, but Thea and Odd Eide—the young immigrant and her misbegotten son at the center of The Lighthouse Road—struck an especially resonant chord with me. I gave them difficult lives, to be sure, but they responded with resilience and modesty and uncommon dignity
.
What’s more, they lived their lives in a brutal and remote place. The North Shore of Lake Superior at the dawn of the twentieth century was a true frontier. In summer it could only be reached by boat, in winter, by sled or sleigh. Between the majesty of the lake, and the endlessness of the wilderness it was a place that lured isolates, dreamers, and stubborn believers. They fished and logged and mined. They built churches and prayed as hard as they worked. There was no fame to be found, and very little fortune, so folks made families and called that the greatest gift.
It’s a pattern and personality that persists to this day. If you’re in the right spot at the right moment along the North Shore, you can be caught out of time. I think that’s one of the reasons it’s such an appealing place to write about. And it’s one of the reasons it was so easy to traverse the century between my own life and the life of Thea and Odd and everyone else up in Gunflint. I hope they’re characters that transcend time in the same way the North Shore does. At the very least, they’ve become models for me on how to live my own life. I don’t know how a book could reward its author much more than that.
I hope you’ll take a trip through the years to see for yourself. I know these characters and the place they live their lives as well as I know my own home and family, and though it’s strange as I’ve said, I’m ready to introduce you all.
So, please, meet the local apothecary and surgeon, Hosea Grimm, and his daughter, Rebekah. Meet Curtis Mayfair, the town magistrate, and Danny Riverfish, Odd’s best friend. Meet Trond Erlandson, the logging camp boss, and all the other roughnecks up in the woods. Meet Joshua Smith, the watch salesman. Meet Harald Sargent, the Boatwright in Duluth. I’ve already introduced you to Thea and Odd Eide, mother and son and the twin beating hearts of The Lighthouse Road.
I like to think if you spend some time with these folks, they’ll reward you. They’ve sure rewarded me.
Peter Geye
http://unbridledbooks.com
http://petergeye.com
Posted in: New Books, Authors Blog, News/Press, | Keywords: letter to readers, lighthouse road, peter geye, safe from the sea, shelf awareness
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