Forest Blood: A Novel (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After a slow start, lingering too long on the history and description of the small timber town of Lewis Falls, Ore., Golden's debut novel settles into a boilerplate exhibit of the politically charged conflict between loggers, environmentalists and big business. Most of the story is told in flashback by 43-year-old lifelong logger John Gilliam, who is paralyzed below the waist after the chain of his saw hits a hidden spike and bullwhips around his body, slicing through muscle to his second lumbar vertebra. He then becomes the sacrificial symbol of the logging controversy; the media and community use his tragedy for their own disparate agendas. Meanwhile, Gilliam ruminates on the idiocies of fame. The cluttered plot hinges on ascertaining the identity and motive of the saboteur: who spiked the tree and who set fire to the food co-op that had been founded by '60s California granola groups? At the core of the story is the lifetime friendship among Gilliam, Steve Raines (son of the current owner of the mill) and Holly Burgess, valedictorian of their tiny high school class who left town for Stanford, returning as an activist until she learns the truth about her group's organizer. Holly's epilogue ties up loose ends once all the culprits are revealed through overheard conversations and confessions. Despite the author's well-meaning intention to expose the plight of the timber industry and his use of details from his experience as forest worker, environmental policy adviser and county commissioner, the novel's plodding pace and cheerless characters do not tap the dramatic potential of its subject.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"'Forest Blood'" is a uniquely compelling fiction about core American issues that are rarely touched by today's fiction. This is a powerful portrait of a region in transition made vivid by the human beings who belong to it." Andrei Cordrescu

"This historical novel, with its deceptively simple narrator, is dumb like a fox. In a stubbornly blue-collar voice, yet in dissertation-worthy detail, Jeff Golden almost lovingly lays bare the Northwest's single greatest folly since the eradication of the Indian tribes: the corporate welfare program that has all but destroyed our vast native forests." David James Duncan -- Publisher Comments

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Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Wellstone Press; 1st edition (February 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0964706679
• ISBN-13: 978-0964706675
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,973,211 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What You Should Know About Life But Were Too Afraid To Ask, January 16, 2007

By	Ruth Davis (Mckinleyville, California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Perhaps some day you will experience the worst emotional pain in your life and you will wonder "How did this happen? Why am I suffering? Why does life have to be like this? Is there a better way?" If you're lucky and have the resources you will find a good therapist who will listen as you answer those questions for yourself. And you would also be lucky if on the way to the shrink you stopped by a bookstore and picked up a copy of Jeff Golden's book. I know of no other book that more powerfully, artfully, and accurately shows how our psyches are formed by our families and our culture and the price we pay for not getting that right. Because Golden described the inner workings of a male logger's mind, the story is most clearly what happens to boys and men, but he was also wise enough to make that character symbolize what happens to girls and women as well, so the book reveals much about the human condition as it has evolved thus far.

Jack, the logger, lives without access to his complete and whole self. His romantic obsession with a life-long friend, Holly, keeps him in a constant state of longing to connect with her but he never does. What Jack really longs for is a connection with a part of himself that was not validated by his family or community. What happens to Jack at the end of the novel tells much about the painful loss of our true self that we accommodate as babies, before we can speak, and which forms the foundation of our psychological make-up. The entire story speaks to the greed, violence, and lack of true love in our world which results from the way most human psyches are shaped as babies and as young children.

My only quibble is that Mr. Golden seems to have an extraordinarily good grasp of the problem but no solution. My hope is that some day he will write a solution-oriented sequel to Forest Blood that focuses on the grieving process or some other more miraculous and less costly cure which leads us to wholeness. In the meantime, I recommend reading The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller and The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Powerful And Thought-Provoking Novel, January 31, 2000

By	[e-mail] (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

In a remarkable first novel, Golden weaves a riveting narrative set against the backdrop of Pacific Northwest timber wars. He addresses both timeless human themes - fact vs. truth, ends vs. means, conflict between individual values and historical forces - and timely social/political issues - local values vs. globalization, personal integrity vs. political/financial opportunity.

Golden presents the historical background of the timber wars through the direct, honest voice of Jack Gilliam, a thoughtful logger and independent thinker with the soul of a poet. We follow Jack as he comes of age and strives to maintain his integrity while providing for his family in a world transformed by apparently inexorable external forces. He struggles to do the "right" thing, while avoiding the temptations of simple, appealing "TRUTHs" that conflict with the complex web of reality. Gilliam's tale provides a compelling, contemporary vision of the paradoxical conflict between the individual's obligation to influence historical events and the real limitations of a modern individual's influence.

Never mind that you couldn't give hoot about the spotted owl or that your knowledge of environmental issues comes from the Jamba Juice Bar. Forest Blood addresses conflicts of fundamental human values in a gripping, contemporary narrative. This book is for you if you are looking for a richly-written, exciting, and thought-provoking novel.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A thoughtful and compelling account of a critical issue, September 19, 1999

By	[e-mail] (San Francisco, California) - See all my reviews

This is a fine novel that is both a captivating read, with complex, carefully drawn charactors, and at the very same time, the best account that we have of the critical ethical conflicts in the ecology movement. If you teach ethics, this book is a clear choice for your students, better than any number of articles on the topic. But if you just plain love a good book, you will just plain love this one. A political novel in the best sense, in that it is about the way in which personal narrative and relationships are at the heart of social dilemmas. This novel takes you directly to the front line of the old-growth timber wars in a way that most of us, as outsiders will never be able to know ourselves, teaching us the power, beauty and transcedence of work. It will be on my assigned reading list for my students, and my friends: a hauntingly beautiful, moving, and very very smart novel.