Ordinary Bear

With the soul of a detective story and a literary brain, this darkly funny novel is all heart as it weighs the burden of grief while exploring our boundless capacity for humanity, kindness, and hope. A Deadly Pleasures Magazine “Best Debut Mystery/Crime Novel” for 2024.

Farley stands out among his Iñupiat neighbors in the Alaska village he calls home, both white and enormous, like the hungry polar bears that wander its streets. Jovial and a little hapless, he works as an investigator for a North Slope oil company, passing the long Arctic winters drinking whiskey with the village’s preacher and playing in the weekly poker game hosted by its matriarch and mayor. When his young daughter visits from thousands of miles away in Portland—where she lives with her mother, who despises him—a shocking moment of violence leaves her dead and Farley injured. Crippled by his wounds and hamstrung with guilt over his inability to save her, he goes home to Oregon to try to make amends.

There he strikes up an unlikely friendship with a single mother and her daughter. With their help, he begins the slow process of healing—until the girl goes missing. Faced with the opportunity to do what he couldn’t do for his own daughter, Farley sets out to use his wits and his fists to try to save her life along with the shattered remains of his own. Order it from Bookshop, Powell’s Books, Amazon, or your favorite independent bookseller

“I’m a sucker for a good bear story, and Ordinary Bear hits all the marks. Ferocious and tender, this novel
is a testament to the power of kick-ass storytelling…and Bernard’s immense talent.”

 —Kristin Bair, author of Agatha Arch is Afraid of Everything

“This book is as immediate, painful, and tender as a fresh wound. It hurt to put it down.
If any of Richard Russo’s characters had cracked ribs and chipped teeth, they’d be C.B. Bernard’s characters.
Bernard possesses a remarkable flair for writing characters with whom we’d travel to hell and back,
which is great, because that’s exactly where he sends them.”

—Adam Shafer, author of Never Walk Back

“A hero’s journey unlike any I’ve ever read—strange, harrowing, and funnier than it has any right to be. In Ordinary Bear, you’ll follow grief-laden Farley through the seedy underbelly of Portland, rooting for him to complete his redemptive quest and, in the process, find a way to forgive himself. A heart-felt page-turner I can’t recommend highly enough.”

—C. Matthew Smith, author of Twentymile

“This is no ordinary bear. It is more of a teddy bear of a book that you want to curl up with,
racing through the pages with the characters to save a child.”

—Audrey Schulman, author of The Dolphin House, Three Weeks in December, and The Cage

“Set against the icy terrain of an Alaskan village and Portland’s seamy underworld, C.B. Bernard’s
latest novel is both an unexpected detective story and, truly, a shattering exploration of what we struggle
to do to save others—and to redeem and save ourselves. Ordinary Bear is, well… extraordinary.”

—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times Bestselling author of Pictures of You and Cruel Beautiful World

“There's nothing ordinary about Ordinary Bear. In this propulsive novel, C.B. Bernard pits some of the fiercest things
around—famished polar bears, ecological collapse, savage inequality—against the awesome power of a father's love.
This timely novel kept me up late, made me laugh, and broke my heart. I can't wait to see what Bernard does next.”

—Diane Josefowicz, author of L'Air du Temps (1985) 

"Ordinary Bear is a dark, comic and soulful crime story. C.B. Bernard has a keen eye for the details of misery
and redemption, whether in the far-flung villages of the Arctic or the eccentric back streets of Portland, Oregon.
This novel is deeply moving and exciting to read."

—John Straley, Shamus Award-winning author of the Cecil Younger and Cold Storage, Alaska, novels

“Farley—just Farley—is an ordinary bear of a man who uses physical pain as a spiritual discipline. Each step he takes in his quest is an act of mortification for something no penance could erase. Contrasting the human propensity for damage and darkness with its wonderful capacity for compassion, comfort, and encouragement, Bernard delivers a heroic myth… An important book for an era which struggles to shape what a healthy version of the ‘strong man’ archetype might look like.”

—Suzanne DeWitt Hall, author of The Language of Bodies