Product Description

From the author of the best-selling Snow Falling on Cedars, a dazzling new novel about youth and idealism, adulthood and its compromises, and two powerfully different visions of what it means to live a good life.

John William Barry has inherited the pedigree—and wealth—of two of Seattle’s elite families; Neil Countryman is blue-collar Irish. Nevertheless, when the two boys meet in 1972 at age sixteen, they’re brought together by what they have in common: a fierce intensity and a love of the outdoors that takes them, together and often, into Washington’s remote backcountry, where they must rely on their wits—and each other—to survive.

Soon after graduating from college, Neil sets out on a path that will lead him toward a life as a devoted schoolteacher and family man. But John William makes a radically different choice, dropping out of college and moving deep into the woods, convinced that it is the only way to live without hypocrisy. When John William enlists Neil to help him disappear completely, Neil finds himself drawn into a web of secrets and often agonizing responsibility, deceit, and tragedy—one that will finally break open with a wholly unexpected, life-altering revelation.
Riveting, deeply humane, The Other is David Guterson’s most brilliant and provocative novel to date.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1670 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-03
• Released on: 2008-06-03
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Amazon.com
Amazon Best of the Month, June 2008: When John William Barry and Neil Countryman meet at a high school track meet in the early 1970s, they are two sides of the same coin: John is a trust fund baby and student of a prestigious private school while Neil is solidly working class, but they share an affinity for the outdoors and apprehension over impending changes in their lives. After an unintentionally challenging week lost in the wilds of the North Cascades, John is compelled to an ascetic path: life in a remote river valley in the Olympic Peninsula rainforest, where he chips a shelter from a granite wall and immerses himself in the esoterica of Gnostic dualism --a philosophy that holds that the material world is illusional and destructive. Neil meanwhile chooses a traditional path as a father and school teacher, despite his troubled friend's exhortations to eschew "hamburger world" and find truth in a simpler, stripped-down existence. Nothing is that simple, of course, and The Other compellingly explores the compromises we make to balance meaning and security in our lives through the choices (and their subsequent consequences) of these two men. --Jon Foro

From Publishers Weekly
Guterson (Snow Falling on Cedars) runs out of gas mulling the story of two friends who take divergent paths toward lives of meaning. A working-class teenager in 1972 Seattle, Neil Countryman, a middle of the pack kind of guy and the book's contemplative narrator, befriends trust fund kid John William Barry—passionate, obsessed with the world's hypocrisies and alarmingly prone to bouts of tears—over a shared love of the outdoors. Guterson nicely draws contrasts between the two as they grow into adulthood: Neil drifts into marriage, house, kids and a job teaching high school English, while John William pulls an Into the Wild, moving to the remote wilderness of the Olympic Mountains and burrowing into obscure Gnostic philosophy. When John William asks for a favor that will sever his ties to the hamburger world forever, loyal Neil has a decision to make. Guterson's prose is calm and pleasing as ever, but applied to Neil's staid personality it produces little dramatic tension. Once the contrasts between the two are set up, the novel has nowhere to go, ultimately floundering in summary and explanation. (June)
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Review
“EW Pick. In 1972, two Seattle teens, working-class Irish boy Neil Countryman and tortured trust funder John William Barry, bond over their love of adventuring in the Northwest’s vast wilderness. Countryman, who continues on to college, marriage, and a career teaching high school English, narrates the story of helping Barry drop out of society to live a hermit’s life ‘without hypocrisy’ in a remote, self-excavated cave. [This plot] is the perfect scaffolding to support Guterson’s absorbing meditation on what it means to grow up, sell out, and lead an honest life. A.”

–Karen Karbo, Entertainment Weekly

“Mesmerizing, even heart-breaking . . . vivid . . . David Guterson explores the fissures in our divided souls: Attachment vs. alienation; moral behavior vs. expediency; joy vs. suffering . . . The Other examines the dilemma that has confounded sages and saints for millennia: whether to engage in our tormented world, or turn our faces from it. . . . By indelibly capturing the Seattle of the 1970s and ’80s, [the novel] becomes a testament to the city’s breathless transition from a quirky, idiosyncratic town of working- and middle-class families to a metropolis for the nouveau-techno riche. . . . With fine-grained details, Guterson displays his near-photographic memory for the fading details of our city’s heritage. [He] is equally eloquent on the raw terrain of the Olympic Peninsula . . . The Other stayed with this reader for days after finishing the book. [The narrator] Neil Countryman is a rich, complicated Everyman . . . And [his best friend] John William must go down as one of the saddest figures in contemporary literature–a bright young man swallowed by his own darkness. Most of us have a friend or loved one who dropped out, checked out and faded away. Could we have saved them? By choosing a different path, have we saved our own skins/souls, or merely preserved them? These are the questions The Other raises. Readers will spend a long time thinking about the answers.”

–Mary Ann Gwinn, The Seattle Times

“The Other features an unclaimed $440 million inheritance and a mummified corpse found in Washington’s Olympic Mountains, but it’s no murder mystery. Guterson uses these circumstances as the backdrop to [a] tale of two Seattle friends [who] forge an unlikely friendship . . . With prose that’s as careful and quiet as a mountain lion, The Other asks, and helps answer, two of life’s most perplexing questions: How do we live in an imperfect world, and what are our obligations to those we love?”

–Steven Rinella, Outside

“[Guterson’s] most brilliant and provocative novel yet. . . . He presents the reader with the quintessential questions of value and choice that shape life. It contains all the elements of youth, idealism and compromise, by paralleling two very different lives.”

–Bill Duncan, Roseburg (Oregon) News-Review

“PEN/Faulkner Award winner Guterson constructs a sensationalistic story that in other hands might have emerged as a page-turning potboiler. Here, events unfold in exquisitely refined prose, which creates a plot as believable as any quotidian workday, while evoking an unforgettable sense of place in its depiction of Washington State’s wilderness. . . . Bonded by a mutual love of the outdoors, working-class Neil [Countryman] and wealthy John William Barry become lifelong friends despite cultural disparities. The bond holds as their adult paths diverge, Neil choosing to teach while John William retreats to a hermit’s life in remote woodlands. When Neil agrees to help his friend disappear, haunting questions of values, responsibility, and choice leave Neil–and the readers of this provocative fiction–to ponder the proper definition of a good life. Recommended.”
 
            –Starr E. Smith, Library Journal

“Life presents crucial choices, although often they are not recognized as crucial at the time. Pick this course, choose that person, follow this instinct, postpone that decision–all can have profound effects on a life. This theme is the underpinning of David Guterson’s strong and evocative new novel, The Other [which] uses the unlikely friendship of two Seattle men to examine such important concerns as the formation of character, the influence of family, the choice of vocation, the allure of alternatives. . . . The Other has its roots in Robert Frost’s much-quoted poem, ‘The Road Not Taken.’ Guterson underscores that link by having the novel’s narrator–English teacher Neil Countryman–do an annual recitation of the Frost poem at high school graduation. . . . What shines brightly throughout The Other is Guterson’s resonant ability to evoke the delights and contradictions of Seattle and its surrounding territory. This novel is a native son’s love song to the Seattle in the later stages of the 20th century. A greasy burger at Dick’s is celebrated, as is the grandeur of the North Cascades. In Countryman and [his best friend, John William] Barry, Guterson captures many conflicting courses in Seattle life (and perhaps in his own character): city vs. country, civilization vs. wilderness, comfort vs. hardship, constancy vs. change, attachment vs. disengagement. . . . This fine, searching novel represents the mature talent of one of the Northwest’s leading writers.”

–John Marshall, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“[A] must-read . . . The story of two boys, John William and Neil . . . John William pulls a Holden Caulfield and decides to turn his back on all his privilege and move deep into the woods. Neil is then left to erase John William’s trail–and see how long he can keep John William’s new life as a hermit secret.”

–Marisa LaScala, Westchester Magazine

“The provocative tale of two childhood buddies who take very different paths as adults. . . . John William Barry decides to drop out of society entirely [and] enlists Neil [Countryman]’s help to disappear, which turns out to be a complicated and tragic endeavor.”

–New York Post

“Involving . . . Guterson follows two friends as their lives take different courses. Neil Countryman and John William Barry first meet at a high-school track event in the 1970s. . . . While Neil embarks on a traditional life, pursuing a college degree and meeting a girl while backpacking in Europe, John William–a wealthy, misunderstood only child–retreats from society, excavating a cave in a remote part of the Hoh Valley where he hopes to live free from the pressures of modern civilization. Once Neil realizes his friend is serious about his Thoreauesque endeavor, he sets about helping John William and becoming an accomplice in his plans to conceal his whereabouts from his family. As the story shifts between past and present, Neil tries desperately to understand the friend he feels responsibility and kinship for even as their lives drastically diverge. . . . Guterson’s novel of friendship and ideas is a moving meditation on choices, sacrifices, and compromises made in search of an authentic life.”

–Kristine Huntley, Booklist

“In this philosophically provocative and psychologically astute novel, two boyhood friends take very different paths: The richer one renounces all earthly entanglements, while the poorer one becomes unexpectedly wealthy beyond imagination. Once again, Guterson writes of the natural splendor of his native Pacific Northwest, though the ambiguity of isolating oneself in nature, rejecting family and society in the process, provides a tension that powers the narrative momentum to the final pages. There are parallels between this story and Jon Krakauer’s nonfiction book Into the Wild, as the novel relates the life and death of John William Barry . . . who forsakes his elite destiny to achieve posthumous notoriety as ‘the hermit of the Hoh.’ What distinguishes Guterson’s novel is the narrative voice of Neil Countryman, who has been Barry’s best and maybe only friend . . . When a novelist scores as popular a breakthrough as Guterson did with Snow Falling on Cedars, a long shadow is cast over subsequent efforts. Here, he succeeds in outdistancing that shadow.”

–Kirkus Reviews (starred)

Customer Reviews

A deep examination both of two individuals and of the decade in which they lived
In THE OTHER, David Guterson tells the story of two high school students who meet at a long-distance track meet in 1972. Neil Countryman is blue-collar Irish and has aspirations of being a famous writer. John William Barry is a non-typical "rich boy" and the product of two of Seattle's most prominent families. The differences in their backgrounds, including the high school each attends, would make it nearly impossible for them to ever meet under normal circumstances. However, following their initial encounter, they strike up a conversation and at once are drawn to each other.

As they begin to talk and spend time together, Neil and John William learn that they share not only a love of literature but also an extreme affinity for the outdoors. As their friendship grows, they find themselves exploring the great Northwestern wilderness, which at times leads them into unchartered territory where they must survive on their wits and each other. Fear of getting lost seems to have no impact on John William and foreshadows events that will shape his future.

The novel jumps back and forth between present and past to create a puzzle of sorts that allows the reader to put together the clues that will dictate the choices both Neil and John William make. Neil graduates college, gets married, teaches high school English and embarks slowly on his writing career. John William's life goes down a radically different path as he decides to move deep into the wilderness in an effort to avoid societal hypocrisies and tenets. Still, he remains connected to the outside world through Neil, who visits him often and supplies him with food, clothing and literature.

An only child, John William reflects on his damaged family, which includes a semi-psychotic mother who turns out to have been a poet writing under a male pen name. He has sought to insulate himself from the hypocrisy of the world and warns aspiring writer Neil: "The problem of living in the hamburger world is that you risk turning into an idiot. Didn't you say you want to write books? You can't do it with a cheeseburger in your hand."

As they continue to lead divergent lives, the plot of the book shifts when John William proposes that Neil help him disappear completely. I found myself comparing Guterson's tale to Joseph Conrad's classic novel, THE SECRET SHARER, which also revolves around two close characters who seem to be two parts of the same soul. At times, Neil and John William are like two facets of the same personality. Neil understands that he has gone down the expected path that society and education have laid out for him, yet he still feels connected with John William's plight.

THE OTHER is the best work that David Guterson has written since his 1994 bestseller, SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS. I question the release date only because it is not a traditional "beach book" or "summer read." Nevertheless, those seeking an honest study of 1970s American youth that looks to answer the questions we ask ourselves about --- concerning our identities and what it means to exist --- will be spellbound by the journey that John William Barry and Neil Countryman take in this novel.

--- Reviewed by Ray Palen

NOT UP TO "PAR"
Self-indulgent to the Nth degree. Spoiled, selfish rich kid dies by his own hubris.

Sometimes Friendship is Hard
Once upon a time, when we were much younger, my husband and I toyed with the idea of faking his death for the insurance. We thought we could buy a small sailboat and Ken would sail it back and forth from Long Beach, CA to Catalina and one day he'd sink it, hide out and after I collected a bunch of money, we'd buy a larger boat, take off for parts unknown and never return. However, we didn't do it, didn't disappear, this is the story of a man who did.

John William Barry doesn't sail away into the wild blue yonder, instead he hermits himself away into the wild green yonder of Washington state. We learn this right from the get go. We also learn that his friend who aids him, Neil Countryman, inherits 440 Million bucks from Barry's estate. We know the ending when we've barely begun, but it makes no difference for this is a story you read for the story, not the thrill or the big payoff.

The story is narrated by Neil Countryman, who takes us back to a time when he was racing in a high school track meet, struggling not to come in last. Running against him, John William (as he was called). The boys become fast friends, sharing a love of dope smoking and the outdoors. Neil is from a middle class background, John Williams is heir to a fortune. Neil wants to be a writer, John Williams wants to live the life of a hermit. He wants to disappear.

Neil aids him by helping to fake his disappearance, but unlike Tarzan John William cannot live without help and over the years Neil treks in supplies to his friend, all the while keeping his secret. As time passes John William deteriorates and Neil struggles, wondering if he did the right thing, if he should talk John William into rejoining the world. But hard and harsh as life is, it's the life John William has chosen. He'd rather be a Gnostic than live in a Hamburger society.

Sometimes this story was a little slow going, but it was never boring. Mr. Guterson has nailed the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest and he's nailed Seattle. He's nailed his two principle characters and he's told a story of the hardships of friendship that is truly unforgettable.

Reviewed by Vesta Irene, Number One fan of Ken Douglas, writer of Tangerine Dream, Desperation Moon & Running Scared. One of the advantages of being married to a writer is that there are plenty of good books around the house. It's turned me into quite a reader. In addition to Ken's books you might also want to check out Snow Falling on Cedars, Mr. Guterson's wonderful first novel.