Secret Bend, Oregon: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure by Joshua Savage, Reedy Press. $27.
Unlike your typical travel guide, in Secret Bend, Oregon: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure author Joshua Savage takes you on a journey through Bend’s under-the-radar treasures complete with paddle-boarding witches, drunk gnomes and homes fit for hobbits. Learn tales of central Oregon’s fascinating history from a Vaudeville dancer with an impressive rock collection; an acrophobic man who made a mysterious structure out of baking pans, bike tires and other metal scraps; and a ghost town said to be the former wool capital of the Pacific Northwest.
Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, Savage traveled the world before falling in love with the Pacific Northwest and settling in Bend. He spent a year talking to locals, exploring and researching to write a guidebook that is as entertaining as it is informative. In his column for The Source Weekly called “Savage in Bend,” Savage answers readers’ inquiries about the area’s culture and history. He is also the author of 100 Things to do in Bend, Oregon Before you Die. For anyone preparing for their annual jaunt to Mt. Bachelor for ski season, pick up a copy of Secret Bend to spice up your itinerary and dive into the region’s unique history. — Sadie Gustavson
A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest, A Novel by Charlie J. Stephens, Torrey House Press, Salt Lake City. $16.95.
Smokey is a young nonbinary kid who wants the simple touch and the attention of his mother. Their mother, however, is yearning for her own cloak of security through a seemingly endless cycle of selfish boyfriends who do not have Smokey’s best interests at heart, and one is particularly nasty — “wanting his drugs and losing his shit. Even his skin smells like anger, it comes out rancid in his sweat at night.”
So Smokey takes refuge in the woods of rural Oregon, finding freedom and solace with the deer and other animals. In the end, Smokey becomes a member of a herd of deer. “We are not cold or hungry or hurting,” Smokey notes.
This is the backdrop of Charlie J. Stephens’ debut novel A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest, a gritty yet tender and wonderfully written coming-of-age story that feels real from page to page.
Indeed, Stephens, in an interview with Eugene Weekly earlier this year, noted that “I’ve had to be clear that this novel is adult literary fiction, and not necessarily appropriate for younger readers,” adding that they hope that adults who read the book “are exposed to some of the struggles that young queer/nonbinary people could be experiencing and that more compassion and awareness might come from that for all our LGBTQ youth.”
Born and raised in Salem, Stephens now resides in Port Orford where they opened Sea Wolf Books & Community Writing Center. — Dan Buckwalter
Death Valley Rocks! Amazing Geologic Sites in America’s Hottest Park. By Marli B. Miller, Mountain Press Publishing Co. $24
Death Valley National Park, which straddles the California-Nevada border in the Mojave Desert west of Las Vegas, is one of the best places for Oregonians to escape the cold wet winters we suffer here. It offers sunshine, clear skies and, most of all, heat. It is, after all, the warmest place in the nation, with August temperatures reaching nearly 130 degrees Fahrenheit.
But the 3,000-square-mile park also presents geologists with a perfect playground. Large swaths of its mountain ranges and flatlands are almost completely devoid of vegetation, meaning rock lovers don’t have to dig deep to see what’s going on.
University of Oregon geology instructor Marli B. Miller has written a lively and accessible guide to the geological wonders you can find in and near the park, from the cinematically famous Zabriskie Point to Racetrack Playa, where large rocks seem mysteriously to move on their own, and the melodramatically named Badlands and Devil’s Golf Course in the valley floor.
My family and I have been visiting Death Valley for more than 30 years, and I still learned a lot from the clear writing and excellent color photography in Miller’s 137-page book. I even discovered there’s a nearby wildlife refuge I’d never heard of, just east of the park. Meanwhile, it’s time for me to start planning our next winter trip. I’ll take this book along. — Bob Keefer
One Ripple at a Time: A Mother’s Story of Life after Loss by Janice Jensen, She Writes Press. $17.99.
In her debut memoir, Eugene author Janice Jensen recounts the horrifying event — the sudden loss of her then 9-year-old son during a family vacation in Austria — that shattered her young family. Brian and his 6-year-old sister Erika were skipping stones on the Inn River when unbeknownst to them and their parents, who had just dropped off their car for servicing at a nearby garage, a Swiss power company upstream opened a dam, releasing a torrent of water. The flood swept through the valley, taking Janice’s beloved boy with it while she watched helplessly from the river bank. Her husband just managed to save their daughter but Brian was gone, his body never recovered.
I met Jensen about a decade or so ago at a holiday dinner party hosted by the owners of The Bookmine in Cottage Grove. She was bubbly and curious and outgoing. She regaled the table with tales of teaching (her chosen career), learning to dance and her many travels overseas. There was laughter and lightness. It was only later that I learned what had happened to her. I marveled that she was able to function at all, never mind to be a seemingly warm and wonderful human being.
We lost touch for several years, but then I ran into her last spring at an event at The Shedd. She told me that she had finally finished her memoir. We exchanged business cards. A few months later, she asked if I would proofread the final version of her manuscript for any mistakes before it went to press. I volunteered to do so, finding only one spelling error toward the very end.
Jensen’s book describes — at times in almost painful detail — the decades-long aftermath of the accident, which include her guilt-ridden husband’s increasing emotional distance, and his descent into alcoholism, dementia and eventual death. Through the years, she stands strong and present for her surviving daughter, to whom the book is dedicated.
Despite heartbreak, Jensen goes on to live a fascinating life filled with connection and love. Her story is one of anguish and loneliness. It is also one of unbelievable resilience and joy. The book, released this fall, is Jensen’s first. — Jody Rolnick
Janice Jensen reads and talks about her book, One Ripple at a Time, at The Bookmine, 702 East Main Street in Cottage Grove 3 pm to 5 pm Saturday, Dec. 7.
Floreana: A Novel by Midge Raymond, Little A. $28.99.
Like all practical insomniacs, I keep a towering stack of books by my bedside. The topics, genres and authors of these volumes are varied, though I’m partial to short stories, tales of adventure and historical fiction. I am often desperate for shut-eye and therefore pleased when a tome lulls me back to sleep within minutes. I have also come to embrace exhaustion when a book is so captivating that I find myself awake for hours. This turned out to be the case with Floreana, a novel by Midge Raymond, an author, writing instructor and cofounder of environmental publisher Ashland Creek Press. Raymond lives in the Pacific Northwest, but Floreana is set on the titular island in faraway Galapagos.
Floreana, according to the author, was inspired by real people and real events. It weaves together the narratives of two women — separated by a century — in alternating chapters. In 2020, the fictional Mallory returns to Floreana to help build nests to save penguins (a job she did a decade earlier with a man she loved) after her marriage falls apart. While there, she discovers the hidden journals of Dore Strauch, one of the island’s actual earliest settlers. Dore was a 23-year-old hospital patient in a loveless marriage who fell for her doctor; in 1929 the two abandoned their spouses in Berlin to build a new life together in paradise. Things did not go well for the pair, especially after their idyll was disrupted by other parties of settlers. While I found Mallory’s tale somewhat contrived, I liked the book’s short chapters and Raymond’s fictionalized version of Dore’s account of her life on the volcanic island. Dore’s memoir Satan Came to Eden is the basis for a 2013 documentary. Advanced reviews of the book call it “riveting,” “absorbing” and “a compelling mystery.” It was all of these and more, keeping me up until the wee hours of the morning. — Jody Rolnick
Jane without Tarzan: The Adventures of a Single Woman by Jane Dods, Luminare Press. $15.99.
Jane Dods, author of Jane Without Tarzan, details her life experiences as a single woman starving for adventure. In her book, Dods sets foot on all seven continents, sharing stories from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro to exploring Antarctica. Born prematurely on Dec. 21, 1935, Dods says she has been eager to explore the world from the very beginning. Growing up in 20th-century Hollywood, Dods was expected to get married and raise a family, but she would not fit the mold society set for women.
Throughout the book, Dods hikes over 2,600 miles, travels on the Trans Siberian Express through seven time zones across Russia and sets off on a 500-mile pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Each chapter takes the reader on a different journey in Dods’ life and how she navigated it as an independent woman.
Dods, who volunteers as a proofreader at Eugene Weekly, says, “I’ve always been single, and I don’t have fears about doing things on my own. I thought that would be encouraging to some girls and women that don’t feel like they could do stuff on their own.” She adds: “I thought maybe telling somebody I could do all this stuff on my own might encourage other people to be a little more adventurous.”
After living in Los Angeles for over 50 years, Dods moved to TrackTown USA to get away from the traffic and get involved in Eugene’s running culture. At 42, Dods took up running and long-distance hikes, running around 30 marathons and making a name in her running group as the “the matriarch of Eugene runners.” At 88, she is still an active member of the community and participates in local races to add to her medal collections on an almost weekly basis. Available direct from author, 541-741-3020. — Samantha Sobel