The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl

Both sweeping and exquisitely intimate, award-winning author Bart Yates blends historical fact and fiction in a surprising, thought-provoking saga spanning 12 significant days across nearly 100 years in the life of a single man, beginning in 1920s Utah.

“Each day is a story, whether or not that story makes any damn sense or is worth telling to anyone else.”

At the age of ninety-six, Isaac Dahl sits down to write his memoir. For Isaac, an accomplished journalist and historian, finding the right words is never a problem. But this book will be different from anything he has written before. Focusing on twelve different days, each encapsulated in a chapter, Isaac hopes to distill the very essence of his life.

There are days that begin like any other, only to morph through twists of fate. An avalanche strikes Bingham, Utah, and 8-year-old Isaac and his twin sister, Agnes, survive when they are trapped in an upside-down bathtub. Other days stand apart—including a day in 1942, when Isaac, stationed on the USS Houston in the Java Sea as a rookie correspondent, confronts the full horror of war. And there are days spent simply, with his lifelong friend, Bo, or with Danny, the younger man whose love transforms Isaac’s later years—precious days with significance that grows clear only in hindsight.

From the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to a Mississippi school at the apex of the civil rights movement, Isaac tells his story with insight, wisdom, and an emotional depth that reminds us there is no such thing as an ordinary life—and the greatest accomplishment of all is to live and love fully.