“Well now, here's a fine thing, a plain-spoken book about the values of work and weather and plain food cooked with care as a means of healing what ails you. It's a tale of three men: an older man broken by a senseless accident, a man in midlife hurt by guilt and and someone else's foolish risk-taking, and a young man who for lack of role models has fallen into a thoughtless kind of delinquency. They are brought together and healed by a project: building a ramp that some fools will use to try to send a woman flying on a motorcycle over a remote part of the Snake River gorge. The big irony here is that they are healing by doing exact, careful work on a project that will ultimately be put to reckless, foolhardy purposes.
Not much happens. Darwin cooks, Art Key plans rigorously, and Ronnie learns how to use tools, how to work with care, and how to be a man. Even when it looks like things are going to happen, the plot twist is often that not much ends up happening. The only time a major event does occur is near the end of the book, and that's the only aspect of the book that I'm not sure is pitch perfect. To avoid spoiling, let me just say that I understand the decision regarding the ramp, but I'm not so sure about Carlson's decision for one of his three leads. I just can't get a fix on what it signifies.
But nevermind that. Carlson is one of those regional writers who somehow manages a big reputation and following in the West where I come from originally, but isn't known much at all where I live now in Virginia. This isn't the kind of book that will break him to a wider audience, but I highly recommend his work, particularly to men who don't think that literary fiction is for them. His style is crystalline--open and forboding as the Idaho skies of the title. There's a rhythmic attention to detail here that is good for your soul.”
