Rich with humor and natural history, this memoir describes 25 summers of back-to-the-earth adventure as author William L. Sullivan and his wife Janell build a log cabin by hand along a roadless river deep in the wilds of Oregon's Coast Range. Along the way they confront beaver in the refrigerator, raise a family, and puzzle out a murder mystery that had haunted their homestead site. Cabin Fever takes readers to a warm world of kerosene lamplight, wood stoves, and ghost stories that may be true.
The author of three novels and a dozen nonfiction books, Sullivan grew up in Salem, Oregon. He completed his B.A. degree in English at Cornell University under Alison Lurie, studied linguistics at Germany's Heidelberg University, and earned an M.A. in German at the University of Oregon. He reads in a dozen languages, plays the pipe organ, and enjoys backcountry ski expeditions.
Sullivan is known in the American West as the author who backpacked more than a thousand miles across Oregon's wilderness in 1985. His journal of that adventure, "Listening for Coyote," has since been chosen one of Oregon's "100 Books," the most significant books in state history.
In summer he writes at the log cabin that he and his wife Janell Sorensen built by hand in the wilds of Oregon's Coast Range, more than a mile from roads, electricity, and telephones. The rest of the year they live in Eugene, Oregon, where he volunteers to promote libraries and literature.
A list of Sullivan's books, speaking engagements, and favorite adventures is at www.oregonhiking.com .
