Traplines
Coming Home to Sawtooth Valley
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4.6 • 5 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
In 1987, John Rember returned home to Sawtooth Valley, where he had been brought up. He returned out of a homing instinct: the same forty acres that had sustained his family’s horses had sustained a vision of a place where he belonged in the world, a life where he could get up in the morning, step out the door, and catch dinner from the Salmon River. But to his surprise, he found that what was once familiar was now unfamiliar. Everything might have looked the same to the horses that spring, but to Rember this was no longer home.
In Traplines, Rember recounts his experiences of growing up in a time when the fish were wild in the rivers, horses were brought into the valley each spring from their winter pasture, and electric light still seemed magical. Today those same experiences no longer seem to possess the authenticity they once did. In his journey home, Rember discovers how the West, both as a place in which to live and as a terrain of the imagination, has been transformed. And he wonders whether his recollections of what once was prevent him from understanding his past and appreciating what he found when he returned home. In Traplines, Rember excavates the hidden desires that color memory and shows us how, once revealed, they can allow us to understand anew the stories we tell ourselves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After nearly 30 years away, Rember, a Harvard-educated English professor at Idaho's Albertson College and holder of various odd jobs, returns to his backwoods roots in Stanley, Idaho. The hardscrabble wilderness of his youth has seen major changes: pushed to the brink of environmental disaster from nuclear waste runoff and overbuilding, it has been reclaimed by well-meaning preservationists and returned to something that resembles home, only "what once was familiar was unfamiliar. What once was real was no longer real." Native fish have long disappeared, replaced by farmed fish; wild game replaced by protected "wildlife." Yet, sunsets are still magical and the old fences and ruined cabins still have stories to tell. As Rember relives his youth, his focus moves away from the ways his surroundings have changed to the ways he has changed. As he revisits his home grounds looking at the antlers his trapper/fishing guide father collected; finding an old photo of his grandma, who lived "on the ragged far edge of consensus reality"; remembering the elks he shot and gutted he relives the turning points, the revelations, the small epiphanies "for which all subsequent living is merely repetition and elaboration." He used to think life was about "free will," but now, feeling the tug of his own history, he can settle for "free fall." Rember writes sentences so elegantly crafted they seem effortless, tells stories so well turned readers will want to read them aloud. Beneath the writing, it's Rember's voyage to self-consciousness that gives his story power and meaning.
Customer Reviews
No matter where you live...
...you should read this book. The setting is Idaho's Sawtooth Valley, but the lessons are universal. It's about finding a place in the world and making it your own...about how place affects who we are...and about finding peace of mind in a world that is all too transitory. On top of all that, the book is beautifully written. Rember is one of the most thoughtful and thought-provoking authors you'll ever encounter. Do yourself a favor and read this book. You'll find it a welcome respite from today's headlines.