Product Description

From the powerful author of Birdy, Dad, and A Midnight Clear, the acclaimed memoir about a family's tragedy, recovery, and spiritual renewal. It is the true story of the events that changed Wharton's life and gave him a belief in an afterlife--the story of the tragedy that killed his 36-year-old daughter and her family in a highway collision, told amazingly from his daughter Kate's point of view, as well as his own.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1238955 in Books
• Published on: 1995-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 246 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Wharton is an award-winning novelist (Birdie; Dad; A Midnight Clear) who six years ago lost his daughter, her husband and their two babies in a multi-car highway crash in Oregon caused by smoke from nearby "field burning" that blinded the drivers. In this account, based on his knowledge of the accident and his involvement in the years of legal shenanigans that followed, Wharton writes what is in effect a documentary novel, bringing it all to harrowing life with the skills of a born storyteller. In the first chapters, he writes as daughter Kate, evoking her wandering life, her unhappy first marriage, her meeting in Germany with big, cheerful Bert from Oregon, their homecoming to his native state and the moments right up to the crash. As Will, her father, he recounts his family's vast sorrow?and there are few more wrenching accounts of grief in literature?and his determination, buoyed by a dream of the dead family, to seek redress for their deaths. Hiring an Oregon law firm, he soon runs into a wall of resistance: the field burning is seen as an economic right of the state's grass growers, despite strong local opposition, and soon the lawsuits begin to fly back and forth. Frustrated in his efforts to win a jury trial, surrounded by lawyers and friends who see cash as fair payment for life, Wharton retreats to an elegiac but wonderfully poetic conclusion. His book has the ring of emotional truth even as it reads like a grippingly dramatic novel, and its blend of sorrow and a healing anger has a bracingly cathartic effect. 50,000 first printing; author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Until August 3, 1988, novelist Wharton (Birdy, 1979, Last Lovers, LJ 4/15/91) and his close-knit family had led a rather charmed and charming life "in a kind of never-never land where nothing happens to us, only to other people." But on that terrible day, disaster struck; Wharton's oldest daughter, Kate; her husband, Bert; and their daughters, two-year-old Dayiel and eight-month-old Mia, were killed in a 23-car collision on an Oregon highway, triggered by dense smoke rolling over from nearby fields where a farmer had been burning grass stubble. In his first nonfiction work, which he terms "biography-autobiography-fiction...in the form of a documentary novel." Wharton applies the same literary techniques that made his novels so emotionally compelling to tell a powerful story of devastating loss and spiritual healing. In Part 1, he uses Kate's voice poignantly to reimagine the vibrant lives and violent deaths of a loving young family. In the next two sections, Wharton recounts his grief and anger at an accident that could have been prevented and his three-year legal battle to bring the environmental issue of field burning to trial. No happy endings here, but two spiritual epiphanies give Wharton and readers a new understanding of life and whatever lies beyond death. Highly recommended. [See profile on p. 109.?Ed.]?Wilda Williams, "Library Journal.
-?Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The novelist who has so jealously guarded his privacy in his previous works unfolds a heartbreaking event in his family's recent history. Wharton calls his newest work a medley of biography-autobiography-fiction written in "the form of a documentary novel." Wharton first writes from the point of view of his grown daughter about her love life, marriages, and the birth of her three children. This section ends with her death (along with her two young daughters and husband) in a tragic multicar accident. In part 2, Wharton takes over, telling of his role as grieving father and grandfather. Finally, in part 3, he records his pursuit of justice over the cause of these deaths--the environmentally unsound but legally permissible burning of grass fields in Oregon, which caused an intense, blinding layer of smoke to cover an expressway on which trucks and cars traveled in excess of 70 mph. Wharton's encounter with the legal system left him frustrated, to say the least. However, this recording of his anguish and unhappiness should prove far more effective than any courtroom drama in clarifying the horror of the tragedy and the case against grass-burning in Oregon. Denise Perry Donavin

Customer Reviews

Non stop reading ~~ tears pain and anger into taking action!
A year and a half ago I read the, then latest book, "Ever After," by my favorite author, William Wharton. The author of "Birdy," "Dad," and most recently, "Houseboat on the Seine," depicts the horrendous 23 car pile up on Oregon's Interstate 5 in the summer of '88, that occured due to field burning near Albany, Oregon. Seven deaths resulted out of overt negligence on the part of Oregon laws, businesses, political action committees and the farmer(s) involved. The author dealing with the personal impact of this tragedy, eventually decides to take action and attempts to pursue legal recourse. The book outlines the tremendous forces that come into play within our business/legal/political system(s) when it comes to assuming responsibility/liability for both the personal and ongoing environmental disasters that evolve out of negligence and irresponsibility. This book stirs even the apathetic into action

moving memoir of daughter's death by artist/painter
William Wharton, author of DAd and Birdy writes a moving account of his daughters death in Oregon and of his attempt to bring attention to the dangeous practice of field burning by large seed companies. An intensely moving experience, especially if you have children. Highly reccommended

Diary of a Family Tragedy
Ever After (published in the UK as Wrongful Deaths) is the most personal of William Wharton's novels. It tells the tragic life story of the writer's eldest daughter from her childhood, through unhappy marriage and not-too-successful career in teaching to her second much happier marriage and tragic death in a traffic accident caused by grass burning in Oregon. The accident took the lives of her, her husband and two daughters. This part is poignant and most touching.
The second part details the attempts of the relatives of the deceased to bring the guilty to justice and, which is by far more important, to ban grass burning in the state of Oregon. This part is even more likely to bring tears to your eyes as it is a long and losing battle. The mourning families don't stand any chance against the US political and legal system, and the local fat cats. They are cheated and ouwitted by cunning lawyers and politicians too greedy to see that their actions only add to family tragedies. Wharton's dissection of the US legal system is extremely edifying to anyone who still believes in it.
Wharton presents his personal tragedy in an extremely touching way, inviting the reader to share his loss without giving up his dignity. It is an important and sadly overlooked novel.