My rating: 5 of 5 stars
It’s been awhile since I read a novel so evocative and lyrical. The plot unfolds as naturally as breathing. Everything in the world of Neawanaka, Oregon is an essential part of the story: the places, people, animals, the river and the sea, the rain and the trees. All five senses are fully engaged and emotionally aware, with an effect not unlike reading Virginia Woolf or Bruno Schulz for the first time. While some stream-of-consciousness prose tends to distance the reader from the characters, or tends to focus primarily on one character, Doyle manages the opposite; the depths of everyone and everything are interconnected and illuminated. I only regret that I discovered this book a full year after Doyle’s passing. I would have loved to ask him about the process of writing Mink River.
Liz Kellebrew 