Customer Reviews

Due North

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I was also captivated, and now haunted by this book. Although I lack the character this woamn had, I identified with her in so many ways. The scene of her husband getting mauled by the bear is forever engraved in my head. I can't believe it is out of print; this book should be required reading for everyone.

Mitchell Smith has written novels with tremendously varied settings. Stone City took place in a prison. This novel deals with a woman's life alone in the wilderness of northern Alaska. She lives there because she likes living there. Novelists are often cautioned to write about what they know best. Smith is neither a woman nor an Alaskan, but this book of an arduous life is fascinating, and seems very realistic. I highly recommend it.

This was one of the best books that I've ever read. I was devastated when I lost my copy and found that it went out of print -- but Amazon located another one for me and I just read it again. The step class was even better then 2nd time. I read a lot of books and this is the first time that I'd like to contact the author.

I've been wanting for some time to write to Mitchell Smith (I've never written to an author before), to try and tell him how much I loved this tremendous book. Does anyone have an e-mail address for him? Has anyone out there ever contacted him and asked why this book was allowed to go out of print? Or just thanked him for writing it? Please let me know...karen craft

I read a lot of novels. Sometimes I forget the name of the author, more often I forget the name of the book. The first words of Due North I shall remember for ever - and I only read it once. After borrowing this extraordinary book from the library I went out to buy copies for myself and for my friends. I was devastated to find it was already out of print. No author deserves such a short life for his work, and especially not for a work as strong as this. The first line? If you want to know, you'll just have to find the book and read it. Badger the publisher into a reprint.

With Due North I have, alas, read everything Mitchell Smith has written. My friend, novelist Neal Barrett, first introduced me to Mr. Smith with a novel entitled Sacrifice. "This guy is really good," Neal said. The novel is a thriller about a man just out of prison who goes looking for the killer of his 22-year-old daughter, the apparent victim of a Florida serial killer. The book was brilliant. I immediately sought out everything else Mr. Smith had written. I didn't read his books in chronological order; I read them as I found them and so Due North was the last I came upon, although it was published in 1992.
Due North may be the most mainstream of Mr. Smith's novels. He has written thrillers, crime novels, psychological suspense, and a science fiction trilogy. I suspect genre categorization has not helped his reputation as a great American writer, and his novels have often been hidden under generic cover art that offers no clue as to the narrative power and authority of the voice within.
I am a voracious reader, and Mitchell Smith is one of the best novelists I have ever read. He reminds me of Jim Harrison, Charles Portis, Ernest Hemingway, Elmore Leonard, and Mark Twain. Twain seems a kindred spirit in many ways. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is filled with truths about the natural world and the way things work. Huck's knowledge of the river is bone deep and unassailable. There is a hell of a lot of old fashion know-how in Twain's novel. All Mitchell Smith's books have this same knowing; his characters are embedded in their fierce worlds, carved with a clarity, lyricism, and eloquence that makes the prose of, for instance, Cormac McCarthy seem mannered, bombastic and ungainly by comparison.
Due North is the story of Sara Maher, a young and independent woman living in the wilds of Alaska with her dogs after the death of her husband (killed by a bear). Sara decides to return to her sister and civilization--but not right away. For over half the book, the reader lives with Sara in her hostile environment, a world of ice and snow and the cruelty of implacable physical law--and outrageous beauty.
Mr. Smith knows his characters and the worlds they inhabit with a profound, uncanny intimacy. It is hard to imagine how anyone can know as much as Mr. Smith does about so many things, but I have never doubted that he does. His vision is clear, this clarity like god's cruelty--none of his characters is safe--and the emotions that are evoked are won by honest labor.
I've rarely encountered a fictional character more real, more eccentric, more exasperating, and more admirable than Sara Maher. And because Mitchell Smith takes the time and craft to introduce her as she deserves to be introduced, her encounter with civilization pays off with, among other things, a hilarious encounter with a militant aerobics instructor who has underestimated her.
Like many long-time readers, I find it harder to be astounded or amazed by some plot device or narrative twist. I am unimpressed with a kind of cleverness that has nothing to recommend it except cleverness. But, near the end of Due North, Sara does something so unexpected and yet so appropriate, so true to her reality, so existentially breathtaking, that I stopped reading and just sat in delighted awe at the narrative powers of Mitchell Smith. The book's slow, steady pacing pays an incredible dividend.
Read everything this man has written. You won't be disappointed.

Mitchell Smith s one of those outstanding writers who somehow, despite excellent reviews, keeps falling through the cracks. Due North is simply a great novel which deserves more than a single reading and contains one of the greatest female protagonists in all of American literature. I would also highly recommend two of Smith's other books. Stone City is one of the best prison novels ever written and Daydreams is a compulsively readable noir thriller. While I found the author's book Karma disappointing and the current futuristic trilogy is just not to my taste, I can think of few writers who have produced three novels of such quality as the onesI have mentioned.

I don't know how Mitchell Smith was able to write as knowledgeably as he did about the wilds of Alaska or write with the voice of of a woman but he did both extraordinarily well.

This is one of the best books I have ever read. I can't believe I am just reading it now although it was published in 1992. And I can't believe it's been allowed to go out of print.

He captures the tortured, haunted voice of Sara Maher and lets the reader see into her soul. EVERY single word and page of "Due North" is considered and perfect. This is not an easy book to read; quite the opposite. It makes you wonder about the choices you would make if you were Sara, both in the frozen North and then as she travels back to "civilization" in Seattle. But it is a book I will always remember and will reread in the future.

NOTE: Sara is a trapper in Alaska. If you are a member of PETA, you probably are not going to like this book.

I forget how many times I've read this book; four or five times, for certain. Each time I encounter some aspect of the story, an individual, an occurrence (like the bear attack) that stops me cold and I simply sit there trying to understand what I just read. This time, it was the inner turmoil of Sarah. Her early family life, portrayed in flashbacks as she returns to Seattle to visit her sister and dying mother, her disruptive influence on the wilderness people she finds herself among, her feeling that she contributed to the gruesome death of her husband, how her loved ones primarily consist of her sled dogs, all of these forces make for one of the most fascinating female figures found in literature. There are worlds within worlds in this book impossible to grasp in one reading. This book is among the treasures I've found that demonstrate the power of a good story well told.

I love to read and enjoy many different styles and types of books... sometimes a little like popcorn. I read Due North years ago; forgot the author, forgot the title, but would periodically flashback on some of the memorable moments in the book. Finally I decided I had to read it again. I googled some key words (novel AND Alaska AND bear AND aerobics) and there it was! You will love this book! I agree with the others- it is amazing, and a shame, that this is out of print. Thank heavens for Amazon.