Greasewood Creek

October 10, 2011
In her debut novel, poet Steele (Paper Bird) finds spare beauty in bleak emotional and physical landscapes. When Avery was just a child, her younger sister, Jean Ann, drowned in the creek abutting their family's property in eastern Oregon. In the years following Jean Ann's death, her father abandoned the family, and her mother descended into depression and alcoholism. Now a young woman, Avery manages her own land with romantic partner and childhood best friend Davis Lovell. She flirts with the attractive possibilities posed by both flight and retreat before finding a third option that may help her look forward rather than back. Steele offers an eloquent meditation on patterns of grief, loss, and silence between generations, with the quiet, grounded narration moves fluidly across time and slowly revealing these patterns. Most memorably, Steele reveals the unexpected details in a landscape that many might dismiss as barren: "The moon is full upâa deep water sky coming with it, and a wind that makes a sound like a river moving through the trees, a wild and invisible thing that turns them inside out."

November 1, 2011

The expressive language of poetry is unmistakable in Steele's lyrical debut novel about Avery and her boyfriend, Davis, whom she has known since childhood. Life is difficult and demanding on the eastern Oregon farm Davis inherited from his grandparents. Davis is not a demonstrative man, so Avery suffers in silence, haunted by the childhood death of her younger sister, who drowned while in her care. This pivotal event destroyed her family. Avery awaits the birth of her own child with Davis, which she hopes will chase away her ghosts. When she tragically loses the baby, nothing is the same between her and Davis. To help her forget, Lennie, the daughter of one of the ranch hands, takes her to a Native American ceremony where an elder tells the story of the tribe's great loss of abundant salmon because of a human-made dam. Their sense of loss weighs heavily on Avery, giving her the strength to take a path of hope and healing. VERDICT This is a spare but powerful novel from award-winning poet Steele (Paper Bird). Intelligently written, the narrative offers insight into the depth of human loss and suffering.--Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Palisade, CO

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