Mink River

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Average customer rating 5.0 (82 comments)

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If rivers could talk, would you listen? If your answer is yes, then this is the book for you, where author Brian Doyle brings to life a wealth of vividly real and enthralling characters, human and otherwise. Each voice is richly different. Each surface holds hidden depths of joy or pain. And each chapter of past recollection, future dream, or present hope is beautifully presented. Brian Doyle gives voice to Oregon’s coast in the same way Kent Haruf gives voice to the plains. Speakers and thoughts need no quote markers. Words in memory are every bit as real as those said out loud. And words of river or bird have just as much importance as those of a dying man or a wounded child. Thought provoking, inspiring, haunting, hopeful, honest yet filled with delight, Mink River reads like a song, like houses and trees, like past and present, plant and water, vineyard wine and the ocean rolled into one. I really enjoyed it. Disclosure: I’d long planned to read a book by this author, and started this the day he died. He will be missed.

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This is the most beautiful book I have read in many years! Brian Doyle weaves the spiritual and natural worlds into the human world so flawlessly. I cried when the book was over because I couldn't live in it any more. Doyle is my new favorite writer and I have read all his books since.

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I loved this book. The characters are wonderful, including the talking crow, Doyle's writing style is lyrical. I started reading it again as soon as I finished it.

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Ever read a book that ends up turning you into a short-term fanatic? Right now, I think Brian Doyle is the most awesomest thing since sliced bread. (Yes, I know. I meant to write it that way.) Mink River has been coming up on various "you'd like this" lists for awhile, and I enjoy his column in The Oregonian. His column in no way prepared me, however, for this novel. It blew me away. What I loved: * Characters. They are wonderful, deep, human, special. Magic. * Moses. An off-shoot of "Characters," but worth it's own asterisk. I love Moses. I want to know Moses. * Irish stories. Native American stories. Cuchulainn, my favorite literary hero has a place in this book. * A healthy dose of magical realism. * Spirituality, as seen through flawed souls. * Lyricism. This is lyrical prose. It's poetic prose. It's prosely poetics. Okay. It's just lovely. I had to read some passages aloud to fully taste the loveliness. My husband was frequently treated to "Hey, listen to this paragraph!". *Gentle and powerful. This isn't a book to power through. It merits listening. Some complain that it's got strings of nouns, adjectives, whatever.... but the thing is, that's a chunk of the point. Life, beauty, nature, societies - we're all a collection of things and sights and sounds, and those things together build a world. Doyle's world is full and magic and, to me, oh, so real. Sometimes, once in a great while, a book comes along that I just don't want to end. I begin reading slower, and slower, feeling the end draw near, and I just don't want it to happen. Mink River was one of those books. I look forward to his next novel. I'll be checking out some of his short story collections in the meantime

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This book came my way as I was invited to join a monthly discussion group as I make the Oregon coast my home for the next three months. The setting seemed somewhat like nearby Lincoln City or Depoe Bay but ... not quite. The author seemed to combine characteristics of various coastal towns to come up with Neawanaka. Both the Salish and Irish are storytellers, and the town's inhabitants fit into these categories splendidly as life and lives are recounted. "A town not big not small. In the hills in Oregon on the coast. Bounded by four waters: one muscular river, two shy little creeks, one ocean. End of May - the first salmonberries are just ripe." And thus begins the story of Neawanaka, the people who live here and whose lives intertwine. Some of the stories are told by Worried Man as he makes tapes for his grandson Daniel, others stories simply come together in relating the people, the seasons, the peculiarity of the distinct landscape. Like a river rolling toward the sea the stories flow and sing. Mink River is a lyrical delight in the telling.

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I loved it! When I am travelling I like to buy a book by a local author. In Portland I chose Mink River and it was a delight. Sentences and phrases you just have to read over and over again. Special words with special powers. This is a story that makes you think and wonder. This is a story that makes you feel changed by the experience. Wonderful characters, very real yet quirky and magical. My favourite - the crow!

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Mink River by Brian Doyle is a great read. I originally picked the book because, like Doyle, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and anything remotely related to the ocean or the area in general intrigues me. Perhaps it’s the nostalgic feelings and reminders of home that overcomes me when I think about the area where I spent so much time when I was younger, whatever the reason I just love everything and anything about it. All I knew about Mink River was that it was the story of a small town in the Northwest, other than that I was going into it blind. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I picked it up and I have to admit I was a bit nervous that I wouldn’t connect with the story. I am happy to say that those nerves were calmed because the book was absolutely fabulous. It centers on the happenings of a small town filled with interesting people. From little Daniel and his three braids, to Worried Man and Ceder, the characters in the book are quintessential of the North West. Everything about the story settings and the stories carried with them the North West feel. Anyone who has visited the area will understand and relate to the descriptions Doyle gives. You are sure to find one character that absolutely intrigues and captivates you. Doyle does a tremendous job at interweaving this captivating stories and characters with twists and a beautiful prose style. There is something absurd yet sublime about the book and the way Doyle tells it. Reading Mink River made me remember why I love literature so much. Doyle makes language fun and exciting again. All in all, Mink River is a fantastic novel.

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I married an Oregonian from the south coast, who worked on a gyppo logging crew through college and whose stepfather was a commercial fisherman. Against that background, the characters in this book felt like old friends. But even without that, the novel is a thoroughly charming and engrossing read. I didn't want to put the book down. It's the first time in years that I've gasped aloud as I've read, worried about the welfare of the people who inhabit the pages, cried as the characters suffered through life changes, and been engaged by the magic of the story. Thank you so much for a book that ranks among my top 10!

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In Mink River, Brian Doyle melds Native American folklore, Irish storytelling, a host of quirky characters, and a little bit of the fantastical to bring a coastal Oregon town to life. The town is Neawanaka, whose residents get by as many real-life Oregon coast residents do: by logging, fishing, catering to tourists and dairy farming. As in a good story told around a fire on a winter's evening, Doyle lets this one slowly unfold. Readers get to know each character a little bit at a time. Some are revealed intimately, their humanity exposed in both flaws and strengths. Others we know only in bits and pieces as they show the best or worst of themselves. Each causes both good and bad ripples that resonate through the entire town. Getting used to Doyle's style of writing, which juxtaposes short, staccato sentences against long, train of thought paragraphs, is part of getting into the rhythm of the story. The style makes the reader pay attention to every word, a good thing because both dialogue and description reveals much about Neawanaka and its people. These people, driven by love, fear, insecurity, desire, hope, despair and more come to feel like people you know or wish you knew. The story of Mink River stayed with me long after I turned the last page. Book clubs that take it up can talk about the nature of small towns, telling stories as a way of understanding our past and our present, discovering the dreams you want to follow, and the different types of characters that make up the tapestry of life. It also may inspire you to learn more about Native American cultures and Irish storytelling traditions. I highly recommend it for groups with readers aged 16 and up.

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This book is beautifully written with poetic images and unique word choices. My book group read it and we all loved it! It's a plus that Brian Doyle is a Portland writer. It's set in a fictitious Oregon coastal town and the stories he weaves are a magical combination of Irish and Native American oral traditions.

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A fresh, delicious portrait of life (and lives) in a small coastal community in Oregon. I spent weeks after finishing this book still thinking of the characters.

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If Ken Kesey and Gabriel Garcia Marquez had collaborated on a book while shacked up in a cabin near Neah-Kah-Nie Mountain, this is the book they would have written. Stunning. Genuine. I was recommending and gifting this book before I'd ever finished. Doyle understand that the coast is a hard place to live and make a living, but there is magic in the struggle and solitude (yes, even god-awful early mornings to take care of cows or head out to sea). The characters are uniquely lovely, mistaken, broken, and fitted together in a story mosaic that's tough to put down. I'll be going back and back to this book forever.

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Mink River is poetry-in-prose. Author Brian Doyle creates a familiar yet magical setting and I was utterly charmed within the first 20 pages.

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Mink River is a gift for lovers of language, magical story telling, and playful duality. It is both yin and yang, light and dark, transparent and veiled. The author captures the desolate beauty of faded communities on the verge of coming back, lives lost and reclaimed, and the healing powers of the universe.

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When I finished this book, I knew it would be one I'd read again and again. A wonderful, lovely read!

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Mink River is at once human and magical. One relates to the real life struggles of the characters while being transported in mind and spirit to a mystical place. This book is a great read - an experience that truly lifts the spirit!

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The writing style takes a few pages to get used to, but once you do it adds such a unique pacing to the book. The story is deep but not somber. It shows the beauty and hope in so many aspects of normal life. I really didn't want to put it down. This is a beautiful and well told story.

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Beautifully written

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"Sometimes A Great Notion" meets James Joyce's "Ulysses"--truly a great American novel.

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A delightful book with complex yet believable characters, a Northwest feel, and Doyle's unique writing style that always makes me smile.

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This novel had it all from poignant human interactions to acts of great humor and heroism. Simply one of the best reads of this or any other year!

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This was an amazing book with a very unique style. I was completely caught up in the story from early on. It was beautifully told- almost like reading poetry.

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Having been a fan of Brian Doyle's essays for quite some time, it was a joy to experience his fiction. His prose is lyrical and delicious and the book is pure pleasure to read alone or read aloud. His descriptions of the Northwest and it's weather are written like a true native son. Bravo!

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I thought this was a great inspired story of a family from grandparents to their grandchildren and all their struggles to exist next to the coastline in Oregon. The book had wonderful little stories like when grandpa told his grandson how his mother got the name "No Horse" and the story of the crow and a different look at what happened when you die. The novel was truly an example of how small towns in the U. S. survive by working together and helping one another.

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I don't think I've ever read a book that had characters who felt so real. The characters felt so real...like people you meet right off the street. What makes it even better is its Oregon setting. There's no way to describe it without cheapening the experience of actually reading the book.

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This book was a like a reading meditation for me.

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The sense of place captured in this story is as vibrant and compelling as any character in the book. Beautifully crafted word images transport the reader to a small, coastal Oregon town, peopled by unique, believable individuals, one of the most memorable being Moses, an intuitive and selfless hero. Lessons about the invisible strands of home, community, shared history and loss which bind us to each other are woven together to reveal a lovingly rendered tapestry, celebrating the gifts of being human, animal, bird, tree, river. The simple wisdom of this richly imagined tale is that each of us contributes to the world we inhabit, sometimes in seemingly small ways, other times in deeply significant ways. This book is a delicious Northwest feast, to be savored and enjoyed more than once.

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I read this book in one sitting, and absolutely loved it. The lyrical quality was vaguely reminiscent of Tom Robbins, and the characters grabbed me and pulled me into total submersion in the story. Mystical, humorous, touching and hopeful... worth reading multiple times!

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A great mix of Native American tales and Irish American tales.

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This is a wonderful, magical book. As soon as I finished it, I turned back to the first page to read it all again.

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This was a lovely book - very lyrical. Following a group of residents from a small town in Oregon, it is filed with stories of myth and magic. I really cared about the people whose stories were told. A very satisfying book!

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This is a truly lyrical book that manages to capture the essence of the Pacific Northwest coast in a fascinating narrative style.

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Brian Doyle writes in pictures in this comedic, ecological, spiritual tale.

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Lovely, lyrical book about community, relationships, spiritual life, and whimsy. Moses the crow is a fabulous character who talks and is integral to the community.

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beatuiful setting and characters

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Beautiful, beautiful story.....

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Read the last chapter very slowly so as I didn't want to let these characters go. Excellent tale that blends native american and christian spirituality.

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Loved this book as a wonderful, magnificent tapestry and map of the loves, lives and actions of the great and flawed people and characters in the fictional coastal town of Neawanaka. For the first time in a long while, I enjoyed this story's characters being not only the human inhabitants, but the animals, spirits and, especially, the landscape itself. Each as important as the other in completing the tale.

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Read this beautifully written novel to enjoy storytelling at its finest. The characters are funny and kind and vulnerable. Dream into the future and marvel into the past with them. Most of all, settle into re-discovering the joys of the present. I loved this novel. There were times I lingered on a single paragraph to savor and admire the poetry of language. I know I will never visit a Northwest coastal town without thinking of words and voices from this novel. These voices resonate with love and understanding and they will stay with you.

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A Seattle friend who grew up in Oregon told me I'd love all the nature, especially birds, in this novel set on the Oregon coast. For the first few pages, I was confused by characters with two names as well as the plot, wishing for a chart of characters and maybe even a synopsis. Then I became immersed in the world of Neawanaka, loving (and worried by) the colorful characters. I appreciated the magical realism along with bits of Irish and Native American wisdom and Brian Doyle's clever language and storytelling. My friend was right, I did love the author's awareness and interpretation of nature, especially Moses the magical crow. I endorse the blurb by The Oregonian, "The greatest gift of Mink River is that it provides every reason in the world to see your own village, neighborhood and life in a deeper, more nuanced and connected way." It was hard for me to finish this novel and know I wouldn't find out the next chapters in the growth and changes in the people of Neawanaka. And yet it has already influenced me to look at my little town in the Pacific Northwest with new eyes.

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Brian Doyle does a bang-up job with this wonderful novel. (And I use wonderful as wonder-full.) The style might take you a bit to get used to. Up to page 74 I was thinking, "This just might be a great book, if he can sustain it", and after that I knew it was a great book. It is big-hearted, moving, and fun. If Ken Kesey had liked people when he wrote "Sometimes a Great Notion", he would have come up with a story like this one.

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The pace and tone of this novel made you feel as if you were fireside with a wonderfully talented storyteller - you happily follow the ribbon of the tale that Mr. Doyle uncoils, with complete suspension of disbelief. Of course the crow, Moses, speaks English and is a wise fellow at that! No doubt whatsoever that Cedar is able to communicate with the bear - in her language! I found myself in a child-like trance eagerly anticipating the next page, and the next...

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Loved this book, totally captured the heart and soul of a small coastal village. I laughed and cried, the characters were so believable. Brian Doyle got every detail perfect!

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This novel has everything I look for in great fiction. An engaging story, fluidly told. Characters who move into my thoughts and stay for weeks. Beautiful writing that never interferes with the story. Surprises. Many surprises. Brian Doyle has created a world painted so vividly that I had to remind myself frequently that it doesn't really exist. When I finished reading, I wanted to read it again, immediately, to tease out a deeper understanding of motivations, of purpose, and to simply remain in the town of Mink River. Easily my favorite book of 2011; this is a book I give to my dearest friends who love to read.

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One of the best books I've read in a long time! It is a good idea to keep a character list as you go, though. Lots of characters have more than one name. I loved the ending.

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Magical and touching. Doyle uses color in a very unique way to underscore the emotional landscape of many scenes.

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Doyle's characterization of small town life on the Oregon coast is captivating for its rich understanding of the joys and sufferings of life in this universe. Even the crow shines with humanity! If you are ready to add another local author to your list of fine writers, read it as soon as possible.

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Brian Doyle makes prose poetry in his fictional account of life on the Oregon Coast among those of Indian & Irish heritage. His use of our language is mesmerizing. I wish it were longer, as I didn't want it to end.

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I can't recommend this book enough. Doyle's characters and environments leap off the page. Do yourself a favor and pick this up.

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A beautifully written, imaginative story set on the Oregon coast, written by a very talented local author. What's not to like? A memorable experience, promise.

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Mink River creates a tapestry of the northwest and quirky characters to love. It reveals a pulse of the land while listening to a revealing forest and sea. The language of the crow and the insight of the creatures open up your heart for enlightening possibilities.

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This is quite a good story, and very lyrically written. And it's got a local setting.

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I loved Doyle's use of language; very lyrical and poetic. His character development is very interesting and the atmosphere he creates is very compelling. I loved this book!

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This was the most satisfying book I read all year, especially because the writing style was so unique and the characters so engaging. It did read like an Irish story, with native american characters, and set in Oregon. I liked that it was a series of vignettes re the same people, was constantly entertained by the words and lists that the author creates throughout the book, and liked the techniques he used as a writer. Brian also came to our book group and in person, was just as entertaining. We had much to talk about!

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When was the last time you encountered a talking crow as a character? Brian Doyle creates a fictional town in Oregon and, with one stroke, enters the lexicon of Northwest literature. Streams of consciousness that create deep impressions of the natural world that I know to be true from my almost sixty years walking those very places between forest and ocean. A tumbling of images, characters both human and animal, all with a sense of deep connection to the natural world around them and each other, a sense of time that places you somewhere in that continuum......unbelievably vivid and poetic writing, I read this book with a sense of wonder I felt as a child and an appreciation I understood as an adult. Bravo.

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Amazing! My favorite read of the year-i didn't want the story to end. I wanted to continue spending time with the characters & their NW surroundings.

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One of the best books I read this year. I am from a small coastal town and this book reminded me a lot of home. Great characters and such an imaginative story. As soon as I finished it I had to read it again, just to savor it a little longer.

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Poetry in prose.

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A solid backbone story of a wild, wet (and normal) small Oregon coastal town, brimming with a bit of compelling magic realism, dancingly naughty Irish humor, primal force Indians, wise old men, a good marriage with an artist wife going through a rough patch, a compassionate nun, drunks, cops, fishermen and a sassy sister. This book has standing-room-only hilarity, wisdom, and rare literacy. The best I've read in many a moon.

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Mr. Doyle creates a wonderful place filled with memorable characters. It is so Oregon ... weird, magical, rainy, mossy, wild, salty, kind and creative.

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Very much a pacific northwest book. Right up there with David James Duncan's The River Why. He builds a town around the lush flora, sentient fauna, and regular people made special in their humanness.

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Far and away my best read of 2011.

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The best book I've read in a couple of years. The story line is magical, the prose poetic, the characters utterly real and lovable. A must read!

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Despite the occasional need for tighter editing, I loved this book. Enough that I have bought and given away seven different copies now. Beautiful, evocative prose -- the coastal setting is as potent a character as any of the vividly drawn humans or animals in this wonderful story. Doyle's words and characters and ideas hung out and played around in my brain for weeks after I finished it.

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I loved this book. Quirky characters, including the crow, kept me entertained. A good depiction of small Oregon coastal towns. Recommended it to my book group and they all enjoyed it too. I would recommend it to anyone.

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Brian Doyle's Mink River was a book fat with words. It's a short book but it took me a long time to savour every syllable and nuance. An amazing story by a very amazing writer... I can't wait for the next novel. I also loved his short stories Bin Laden's Bald Spot!!

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Fantastic book.....mixture of Ken Kesey - Sometimes a Great Notion, Fannie Flagg-Fried Green Tomatoes, and David James Duncan- The River Why. Thoroughly enjoyable....

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Most enjoyable book I read in 2011.

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A beautiful piece of writing! Fantastical and thought-provoking.

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An honest novel told movingly by a good writer concerned with the birds and other living beings of the times and place belonging to him. Told in the third person, this book also gives the place and sense of Oregon and the West Coast, but in the softest way possible, providing us with recognition and a closeness to all of it.

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Characters grab your heart, writing flows like the book's title, and the Oregon Coast! Magic!!

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Far and away the Best Book I read this year. Community ties this very well written story together.

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Brian Doyle's love of words and people is evident in this tale of Neawanaka, a mythical, coastal village in Oregon. Shifting narratives allow the entire town to tell its story. Even the animals and the elements of nature take their turns at weaving this account of small town life, death, love and friendship. If you like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and William Faulkner, Native American and Irish lore, and stories that leap off the page, this book will not disappoint.

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Wonderful read. Mystical rendition of not only culture, but also natural history. Place is a major character in the story, along with a talking crow and a Public Works department unlike any other. I love this book. Set in a tiny village on the Oregon Coast where the Mink River joins the Pacific Ocean, the people, animals and place continue to remain living characters in my mind. Mr. Doyle is a genius.

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Mink River is a rich and poetic Oregon novel. I love the relationship between two cultures, and I want to know these characters!

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Mr. Doyle's writing style is pure poetry. I have never had so much fun reading a book before reading Mink River. The characters are all interesting, the descriptions of setting all so clear that I felt like I was living the story. Very fun read.

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Brian Doyle's mastery of the language is superb. The emotions of love and compassion peremate throughout the novel be it through realism or magic. It is an American novel in which the characters are extremely good, wretchedly bad, or basically just everyman. The landscape and the inhabitants of this Pacific costal village, weather animal or human, are blended perfectly together to form a cohesive bond. Mink River is a masterpiece of literature.

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Extraordinary. I was tumbled under the wild rushing prose, tumbled and cartwheeled and somersaulted through this book full of wondrous and outrageous people, this book full of words sinuous as snakes that would out of nowhere take off and soar like very myth itself. Doyle's foray into fiction is not that far a leap from his past nonfiction- he's such a keen observer of humanity that his fictional people (even his fictional talking, thinking crow) are more real than some of the people I actually know. His sheer delight is alive in the words and it makes each and every page shimmer. There's something quintessentially Northwest about this book, there's the faint scent of Robbins, a sprinkle of Kesey, more than a smattering of the First Nations mythmakers, a spritz of Holbrook, a seasoning of Carver- but it's all infused with the mysterious aching Irishness of Doyle and the love he has for language and humanity and this land upon which I live. I don't mean to say it's at all derivative, because it is not. Not a bit. But it partakes deeply and fully of Place, and as such it rings echoes of those other great books that have come before. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

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This book was a gift. While reading it, it has reminded me of my love for writing and has inspired me to pick up the pen and paper and get to work. The words are like food for my soul one word to describe this book "delicious".

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Doyle writes whole paragraphs composed totally of sentence fragments, and each of those amazing paragraphs contain an entire story. An astonishing and beautifully written book.

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Brian Doyle in his unique and lyrical voice tells a story of a town and its people. All of humanity is on display; the good, the bad and the ugly. The people, their stories, their emotions all ring true and make one believe in this small town on the coast of Oregon. Beautifully written; it tugs at one's heart strings.

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The story is set in a small town on the Oregon coast, where people are managing as best they can with little or no logging, and just a bit of fishing. He's got some magical realism going on, with at least one person and one crow having powers not normally found. There's love, courage, cowardice, selflessness, and crime. The characters are interesting. There's sufficient plot to carry me along, and I'm a lazy reader who requires a good firm tow from a plot. I love the Oregon coast setting, and the panopticon way that several different events in town are woven together in the storyline. Doyle is a poet, and you can see that in the lush language. I do love a novel by a poet. In some ways, the novel resembles Steinbeck's "Cannery Row", only without the older novel's racism and misogyny.