The Bully of Order

Starred review from September 22, 2014
Hart's brilliant second novel (after Then Came the Evening) takes place in the rainy, filthy, raucous American Northwest during the lawless logging days of the late 19th century. Into Harbor, a muddy, mythological town somewhere on the coast of Washington state, sails a bogus doctor named Jacob Ellstrom, whose quackery gets him into big trouble. After a deadly botched childbirth, Ellstrom is forced to flee, leaving behind his wife, Nell, and young son, Duncan, who take up residence with the new doctor, Milo Haslett, just about the only civilized man in town. Jacob's malevolent brother, Matius, appears, claiming the Ellstrom homestead, and tragedy ensues when Jacob returns. Harbor is ruled by the outlaw union boss Bellhouse and his sidekick Tartan, whose violent means to every end leave no one outside their ruinous wake, especially Duncan, who grows up to be a hoodlum like every other man in town, except for his one saving grace: he is in love with the mill owner's daughter, Teresa. In alternating chapters each character advances the story from his own perspective as the unruly community rushes drunkenly, calamitously into the 20th century. Hart's prose is dense and lyrically savage. Agent: Bill Clegg, WME Entertainment.

September 15, 2014

In Hart's second novel (after Then Came the Evening), Harbor, WA, 1886, is an untamed logging camp, "a big wet mess of a place" filled with a menacing set of outcasts. Jacob Ellstrom, the town doctor, has a questionable medical degree but is nevertheless accepted until he bungles a baby delivery. His brother, the cowardly, swindling Matius, steals Jacob's money and convinces Jacob that he killed his own wife, Nell, while drunk. Jacob's son, Duncan, grows up without direction, falling in and out with town thugs Bellhouse and his henchman, Tartan, who impose their own brand of cruelty. Duncan knows only violent behavior, injuring his girlfriend, Teresa, and her brother, Oliver, before murdering their wealthy father, a despicable man who rules the saw mill with an iron hand. A union vs. management dispute, haunting stories of the first Russian settlers, and a powerful fire that consumes half the town more than crush these rugged settlers' belief that their future rests in Harbor. VERDICT Not a writer of half-measures, Hart brilliantly re-creates the rugged life in the Pacific Northwest logging camps of the 1890s. A riveting, powerful tale.--Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Palisade, CO

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