Customer Reviews

The Big Both Ways

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

With this book Straley has proven he can 'change horses' and still ride. Or, in this case, write. Although I will miss his Cecil Younger character, I found a whole new slew of characters to like in this new book. Setting it in 1935 is unique because Alaska barely existed in the eyes of the world prior to 1941 and the outbreak of WWII. The characters in this book, the misfits and the people they run into on their escape up the Southeast coast of Alaska are so 'real', I felt like I knew them all. People credit the gold miners with 'settling' Alaska but it was every bit the others as well, the bartenders, storekeepers, cannery workers, fishermen, and loggers, the everyday folks who people Straley's books who really pioneered Alaska. Hats off, John. It was a great read!! Keep 'em coming!

Once again, John Straley takes you into the misty, wild realm of Southeast Alaska in a way that few authors can. This time it's with a new cast of characters easily as rich and interesting as the old crew of Cecil, Todd and the rest. Straley fills a leaky dory with a cargo of innocence, strength, tenderness and hope then sets it on a journey as unpredictable as the waters it travels. A clever mix of mystery, action, history and heart, this story will pull you along with each stroke of the oars and each stroke of Straley's masterful pen. I loved this book.

John Straley is one of my favorite authors, ever.

I was hooked by The Woman Who Married a Bear. I loved The Curious Eat Themselves. I've read every word he's ever had published in book form, and have a hard time waiting between books.

This last wait was the worst. It stretched on forever.

It was worth it.

This one is the best yet.

We lose Cecil Younger, but we gain four fascinating characters that we'll never forget. Five, if you count the bird.

Slip is a logger who quits when a friend of his dies high in a tree. He is going to 'retire' to a quiet life of farming. Or so he thinks.

In reality, his life is going to spiral around and down like something gross being flushed down a toilet. Every time he tries to escape the latest horrific event, everything just gets worse.

Ellie is his love interest, if you can call it that. He's attracted to her, but is also more than a little scared of her. It's more fascination than love, but just as powerful. She gets him into new legal jams twice as fast as he can get out of the last jam. [Death follows her, and therefore Slip, like a lonely puppy.]

Ellie's fetching niece, Annabelle, helps keep him interested, as in some strange way does Annabelle's bird, a cockatiel named Buddy.

A Seattle detective named George is after all of them, because he is intent on bringing Ellie and Slip to justice, not much caring what happens to the kid and the bird.

That's all I'm going to say about plot, because the story line, while strong, is not what makes this book 'cook.' What lifts it above mere mystery is Straley's magnificent style, his keen insight into what makes characters tick, or not, and his knack for grabbing us where we live emotionally and never letting go.

In the end, what matters is not who is or who is not guilty of murders galore, but who is or is not truly human. That's always been true in Straley, and this time around it's truer than ever.

I stand in awe.

The Big Both Ways is a 1935 period piece, set in Seattle, the Alaskan panhandle and the waters and coastline of British Columbia that separates the two. The descriptions of what is going on around the main characters from other people to the wildlife encountered is very well written and easily conjures up the image of the setting in the reader's mind. Plot is a little unrealistic at times but, hey it's fiction and it allows the story to work after all.

Basic plot revolves around two fugitives on the run from Seattle bound for Alaska. Slippery Wilson didn't know Ellie Hobbs until a couple of days before fleeing to Alaska. When he quite his job in a logging camp and came across her broken down car he had no idea she had a dead body in the boot (trunk). He also didn't know she'd bring a heap of corrupt union trouble on him, or that she had a young girl named Annabelle with a yellow Australian pet bird in her care. Throw in miners strikes, killer whales, porpoises, a brothel, a Seattle cop with his own household problems and a lot of other interesting developments, and you end with a great read. This was my first John Straley novel, it won't be my last!

I have read all of John Straley's novels starting with The Woman Who Married a Bear. I greatly enjoyed most of them but was getting a little tired of Cecil Younger's essential ineffectiveness and therefore don't miss him in this latest work. This is easily the best thing that Straley has written but it is somewhat incorrect to call it a mystery in a classical sense. The resolution of who done what to whom is so incidental that it is more or less covered in what amounts to an afterword. It is closer to being an historical novel and what matters here, and in all good fiction, is what the characters are thinking and feeling and how they are growing as the plot develops. Annabelle, Ellie and Slip are all memorable is their own right and will stay with you . The story is only a little over the top and the author introduces it as a tall tale to be told around campfires but I think it is more. It is a frontier origin myth set in a little known period of American history with enough real history to leave you with the feeling that maybe that did happen. Let us all hope that Straley keeps writing and keeps growing his characters and expanding his horizons in his Alaskan Shangra La where he easily takes us to another time, another place. I will wait impatiently.

"The Big Both Ways" is the kind of book that stays with you for awhile, that pops back into your mind unexpectedly, after you finish it. It tells a unique story with out-of-the-ordinary characters happening in a memorable historical time period and set in fantastic geographical settings. Straley meshes all this together perfectly to make an odd but fascinating tale that I found the most interesting story I had read in a long time.

The story is partly unique for the characters who are thrown together in Seattle and meet again in Alaska. The cast includes Ellie, a strong young woman who is an anarcho-syndicalist trying to stir up the unions in Seattle; Annabelle, her niece, a ten-year-old precocious child with a yellow cockatiel; mild Slip Wilson, a former lumberjack with normal ambitions to have a little farm and a beautiful wife; and George Hanson, "the best homicide detective ever seen along Seattle's waterfront." Of course, there are bad guys who include but are not limited to union busters and private security thugs brought in by management. And there are many more characters specific to the time and setting who populate the pages of the this book and make if full and rich.

The story is also unique because of the unusual adventures that befall the three main characters as they escape from the clutches of their pursuers in a 20-foot dory, ie, large rowboat, with no idea of where they are really going. Afraid of being caught and charged with murder, Ellie and Slip, with Annabelle in tow, frantically journey through Puget Sound and on up the inside passage of British Columbia, learning to navigate and how to deal with currents as they go. Circumstances bring them and their pursuers to Juneau, Alaska, the place of resolution of the "mystery."

The historical time period for this story is 1935, a time with major, sometimes violent, struggles between business owners and unions. Straley uses this period of conflict as the cause as well as the backdrop of his tale, but he doesn't overuse the conflict to make a political statement. The fantastic geographical settings are the northwest coastline of Canada and Alaska, with towering mountains and wild scenery, and the Pacific Ocean as it flows along the coastline, with its sea life including whales.

What brings this all together is Straley's writing style that flows easily and gracefully throughout the book. Straley writes intelligently and with compassion for his characters. This books is such a gem that I wish more people were reading it and reviewing it on Amazon.

I am a Straley fan and have read all his books. If I could I would give The Big Both Ways 10 stars.

Having spent some time in Alaska, I found his beautiful descriptions stirring recollections of winderness fondly remembered. His prose, as always, is a joy to read and again, as always, his characters rise in flesh and bone from the page to stick with you forever.

This is one I will read again and recommend to friends. This is the best book I've read in a long time and I hated for it to end.

This book picks you up and puts you down in another time, another place. As such, it is totally believable and interesting. The Pacific Northwest setting is very real: you can almost reach out and touch it. The trucks, cars, boats, the diners, the meeting halls: they all come to life. The labor strife is also very real, and you learn about workers' conditions without being preached to. The characters are fascinating . . . but I can't quite find their motivation for doing the things they do. Or believing somebody who lies all the time. This is one of those noir or semi-noir mysteries that, if you don't mind irrational actions, you will probably love. And if you question irrational actions, you will probably still enjoy much of this story.

I've read all the Cecil Younger series, and was glad to see this new novel from Straley. His writing is compelling, always character driven, and this tells a story from a period I wasn't aware of, with its Wobblies of the great northwest.
We know about the Seattle/Alaska connection from the gold rush, but the story has never ended. Like many wide open spaces, Alaska has always attracted its share of lost souls who need somewhere to go. Slip and Ellie, Annabelle and even the yellow bird, found their place there with plenty of roadblocks on the way.

Forget Cecil - Slip and Ellie blow the socks off the mystery adventure genre with an exciting saga up the Inside Passage. More twists and turns than the Needles Highway and a roaring ending that knocks your ribs in! John Straley is certainly the best American writer today.