Dear Reader,
Last weekend I walked into a bookshop and, for the first time, got to see my novel Small Animals Caught in Traps on display. It’s not my first book, but it is my first novel, and that moment of joy marked both the culmination of a long journey and the beginning of a new one—one on which I’d like to invite you along.
Though I’ve made a living as a writer for a long time, I’ve always believed that writing is more a way of making a life—not just something you do, but a way of seeing the world and trying to make sense of it. I think we read for similar reasons. Sometimes we read to escape the world, and sometimes to try to understand it.
Small Animals Caught in Traps tells the story of troubled flyfishing guide Lewis Yaw, who is trying to help his daughter Grayling find her way even as he’s losing his own. It’s also the story of a girl trying to save her father from drowning—drowning in grief, cheap bourbon, and his own violent past. Of course, the danger of trying to save someone from drowning is that you can get pulled down too. Sometimes your only choice is to let go.
I’ve always felt a strong connection to the land. Over the years I’ve been fortunate to live and work in beautiful and remote places filled with wild animals and even wilder people. Robert Stone called life “a means of extracting fiction,” and this book is populated by self-reliant people tested by the elements—those of the landscape they inhabit, and those that inhabit them. You’ll find family drama, fistfights, drunken friendships, and even a marauding bear.
“The wildest things aren’t in the forests or jungles, or even in the shadows,” Lewis tells Gray. “They’re inside us, and we spend our lives building cages—work, marriage, friendships, families—to contain them.”
Theirs is a story soaked with the cold rain that falls endlessly on Disappointment, Oregon, the runt of a town where it takes place. But rays of humor and beauty shine through, and ultimately this is a book about hope. I hope it helps you understand the world a little better, or at least to escape it for a bit, and I hope you enjoy the journey.
See you on the shelves,
Chris