There’s a soft spot in Henry Alley’s heart for a person scrambling through hard times. It was evident in the author’s six previous novels, and it shows itself again in At Large, which he will read from and discuss Oct. 25 at Tsunami Books. “I’m always fascinated with people trying to get on their feet,” Alley says. “Once I start a novel, I’m dedicated to the characters.” Known for incorporating intimate gay themes in his novels, Alley steers away from that in At Large. “It is a balance in gender,” he says. At Large is also more sweeping and longer than Alley’s previous works. Set in two parts, it starts with Sue Doerrer, a poet and eventual lyricist, leaving Seattle in 1968 and working as an admissions secretary in a county hospital in upstate New York. There, with her ex-lover Dan Tatascore, a conscientious objector, she works to fight the hospital’s invasion of privacy and cover-up of negligence. The second part begins in 2001, and Tatascore is now a nurse practitioner psychiatrist in Oregon and a veteran of the Stonewall Riots. He despises the 2000 U.S. Supreme Court decision that made George W. Bush president and challenges the specter of the despotic Patriot Act. He does this all while deepening his relationship with his new partner, Eric. Alley, 80, notes that he started writing At Large in 1972. It has gone through many iterations over the years before finally being published this summer by Luminare Press of Eugene. “I saw this book as an organic process,” says Alley, who taught literature at the University of Oregon’s Clark Honors College. “I couldn’t have written this book in my early years.”

Henry Alley will read excerpts from and talk about his novel At Large 5 pm to 6:30 pm Saturday, Oct. 25, at Tsunami Books, 2585 Willamette Street. Free.