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Loading... The Other Oregonby Steve Anderson
None No current Talk conversations about this book.  ozzie65 | Sep 12, 2016 |  no reviews | add a review
Can an idealist from the city stop his estranged friend in the country from exposing a grim and damning secret from their past? On the surface, Greg Simmons seems an utterly improbable informant. He's an idealistic, Cascadia independence proponent from the city of Portland. When the FBI calls on Greg to go undercover to investigate a dangerous militia movement out in rural Oregon, he knows exactly why: his long-estranged friend from the country, Donny Wilkie, could have deep ties to the militia. Greg doesn't want the FBI's help. He needs to pursue the threat all on his own, because his true motives run far deeper--making sure that his former friend will never reveal a damning secret from their past. Greg strikes out for the remote small town of Pineburg, a fish out of water. As he grapples with his and Donny's relationship and why it soured, as the threats to his worldview and to hiding the grim truth darken and mount, he discovers that no one is really who they seem, least of all himself. The dark misdeeds that both he and Donny covered up for so long threaten to reap their toll in the most deadly way. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction--novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home. No library descriptions found. |
LibraryThing AuthorSteve Anderson is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing. Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers  
 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature American literature in English American fiction in English 2000-LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (2)
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Wikipedia in English
1
The story begins kind of chaotically. One of the main characters is in the process of selling books at something called the Cascadia conference. Suddenly, the FBI wants to talk about one of his old friends. Just as suddenly, he is packing up is hipster life to head to Eastern Oregon to check on old secrets. His girlfriend is confused and so was I- what the hell just happened?
Flash forward and he is digging up a body that he and aforementioned friend buried in the woods. Why? To make sure no one had found the body. This practically ensures said body will be found. He then heads to a town where no one knows him and the militia has an underground movement. His hipster demeanor hides his secret past as a “rebel” and “outsider”. He stands out and is harassed and hindered until his mysterious friend emerges (literally) from the bushes.
From then on, a confusing series of events occur that seem to bear no relation to one another. There are characters thrown in that have backgrounds with the two main characters but it is really up to the reader to pull those loose ends and threads together and try to come up with a coherent reason that all of this is happening.
As for the mystery body and why he/she was killed? Who knows. Again, a very vague wrap up at the end with more speculation on why Cascadia may or may not ever come to pass with the emergence of a quiet anarchist(?) who made a cameo in the first page of the book.
Sound confusing? It was. Maybe this is a book you need to read cover to cover in one sitting. Maybe I stopped and started too many times while I was reading this or I was too tired to make sense of it. I don’t know. It just didn’t work for me. On the plus side – it was a book about Oregon that went beyond the trendy hipster life in Portland and went to the eastern side of the state. As a Pacific Northwestern Native (although not an Oregonian), I can appreciate shining a light on areas that few non-natives bother to get to know. (