Trask
 |
By Don Berry
2004. 6 x 9 inches. 368 pages.
ISBN 0-87071-023-0. Paperback, $18.95.
|
"This is the most exciting book I have read in years."
-Saturday Review
Set in 1848 on the wild edge of the continent, in the rainforests and rugged headlands of the Oregon coast,
Trask follows a mountain man's quest for new opportunities and new land to settle. Elbridge Trask is a restless man, a gambler with God, nature, and life itself. Yearning for change, he sets out with Wakila, a young Clatsop Indian, and Charley Kehwa, a
tamanawis man or spiritual leader of the tribe, on an extraordinary journey of discovery.
Trask is at once a gripping tale of adventure and a portrayal of one man's return to the naked simplicity of life. Inspired by his belief in the transcendent power of nature, his fascination with Eastern philosophy, and the lives of historical men and women, Don Berry created a story that is strongly imagined and powerfully rendered-a landmark work. This new edition of Berry's celebrated first novel includes an introduction by Jeff Baker, book critic for
The Oregonian.
"In Trask and Charley, Don Berry creates two of the finest imaginable men from their respective cultures. The result is an Indian/Euro encounter that feels absolutely fateful, and resonates all the way into the heart." -David James Duncan
"[Don Berry's novels] are all remarkable books. Historically well researched, accurate, precise to the details, marvelously evoked, and not gaudy or exaggerated in their invocation of fur trade and pioneer times. Trask still stands as perhaps the finest novel of pioneer life on the early Pacific seashore. Don Berry's literary and cultural contributions . . . [make] him a pre-eminent figure in Northwest letters." -Gary Snyder
About the Author
Author photograph by Wyn Berry
Don Berry considered himself a native Oregonian, despite the fact that he was born in Minnesota, with a lineage from Fox Indians. After attending
Reed College, where his housemates included poet Gary Snyder, who shared his interest
in Eastern metaphysics, Berry began a lifetime of pursuing his many passions:
playing down-home blues and composing synthesizer music, sumi drawing and painting,
sculpting in bronze, exploring theoretical mathematics, and writing for prize-winning
films.
In addition to his three novels about the Oregon Territory (
Trask, Moontrap,
and
To Build a Ship), published in the early 1960s, Berry wrote
A Majority
of Scoundrels, a history of the Rocky Mountain fur trade. An early Internet
pioneer, he also created a remarkable body of literature that exists now only
in cyberspace.
Married with three children, Don Berry died at age 70 in 2001.
Also by Don Berry:
Moontrap
To Build a Ship
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