The Other
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
A powerful story of the choices we must make in a flawed world, by the bestselling author of Snow Falling on Cedars
'Remarkable ... a highly significant contribution to American literature' Giles Foden
'Guterson's books keep getting better ... A moving portrait of male friendship' New York Times
'Powerfully wrought ... Guterson writes beautiful, persuasive prose, harking back to Hemingway' Telegraph
Seattle, 1972: Neil Countryman and John William Barry, two teenage boys from very different backgrounds, are at the start of an 800m race. Their lives collide for the first time, and so begins an extraordinary friendship.
As they grow older Neil follows the conventional route of the American dream, but the eccentric, fiercely intelligent John William makes radically different choices, dropping out of college and moving deep into the woods. Convinced it is the only way to live without hypocrisy, John William enlists Neil to help him disappear completely, drawing his oldest friend into a web of secrets and agonising responsibility, deceit and tragedy - one that will finally break open with an unexpected, life-altering revelation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Guterson (Snow Falling on Cedars) runs out of gas mulling the story of two friends who take divergent paths toward lives of meaning. A working-class teenager in 1972 Seattle, Neil Countryman, a "middle of the pack" kind of guy and the book's contemplative narrator, befriends trust fund kid John William Barry passionate, obsessed with the world's hypocrisies and alarmingly prone to bouts of tears over a shared love of the outdoors. Guterson nicely draws contrasts between the two as they grow into adulthood: Neil drifts into marriage, house, kids and a job teaching high school English, while John William pulls an Into the Wild, moving to the remote wilderness of the Olympic Mountains and burrowing into obscure Gnostic philosophy. When John William asks for a favor that will sever his ties to "the hamburger world" forever, loyal Neil has a decision to make. Guterson's prose is calm and pleasing as ever, but applied to Neil's staid personality it produces little dramatic tension. Once the contrasts between the two are set up, the novel has nowhere to go, ultimately floundering in summary and explanation.
