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Lost Horse Press proudly presents JONATHAN JOHNSON
reading from his newly released book, Hannah and the Mountain
(University of Nebraska Press) on 27
May 2005 at 7 pm at Oden Hall, 143 Sunnyside Road, Sandpoint, Idaho.
The reading/book signing is free and everyone is welcome.
Jonathan Johnson is an assistant professor at the Inland Northwest
Center for Writers, the graduate writing program at Eastern Washington
University. Johnson received a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing
from Western Michigan University, and has taught at Waynesburg College
in Pennsylvania and at the Interlochen Arts Academy. His work has
appeared in various literary magazines and in The Best American
Poetry. He is the author of Mastodon, 80% Complete, a book
of poems.
Reviews:
Hannah and the Mountain is a wonderfully troubling story
of a young couple who chose to go entirely their own way. It is
ultimately a love story written with great intensity and skill,
and not for the faint of heart but for those who can accept the
full burden of consciousness. This is a book you don’t have a chance
of forgetting. —Jim Harrison, author of Legends of the
Fall
Hannah and the Mountain is a wonderfully articulated, sometimes
heartbreaking but ultimately heartening, sumptuous hymn to life.
Jonathan Johnson is to be congratulated and cherished. —William
Kittredge, author of The Nature of Generosity
Hannah and the Mountain is a timeless memoir of two people’s
unique intersection with landscape, imagination, hope, and love.
It contains hard truths and great beauty. The subject—making a life
of worth and fullest possible engagement, particularly under challenging
circumstances—is universal, and powerfully wrought. —Rick
Bass, author of The Hermit’s Story and Winter: Notes from Montana
“A couple seeks life’s deeper meaning in a return to the land . . . and faces both hardship and joy. It’s a familiar American story these days, but Johnson tells it with compassion and grace, focusing in particular on his wife Amy’s pregnancy and their preparations to bring a baby into their wilderness world. . . . Johnson is an elegant, emotive narrator.”—Publishers Weekly.
“Elegant writing and sharp dialogue mark this bittersweet account.”—Booklist.
Synopsis:
Longing for a home in big, wild country that would keep them passionate and young, Jonathan Johnson and his wife, Amy, set out to build a log cabin on his family’s land in a remote and beautiful corner of Idaho. But what began as a doable dream for the two of them suddenly looks quite different when, on their first morning in the cabin—without electricity, a telephone, running water, or real windows—the couple learn that Amy is pregnant.
In this lyrical and intimate chronicle of making a home the hard
way, Johnson describes the competing joys and anxieties of preparing
for fatherhood in a setting as challenging as it is promising: a
paradise of mythic snowfalls and warming wood stoves and elk tracks
at the front door, but also a place where vision, and even struggle
and compromise, are not always enough. Hannah and the Mountain
tells a rare and delicate story of two people exploring the unmapped
territories of loss and grief and finding solace and grace in the
mountains. It offers the reader an unforgettable portrait of a couple
growing up, learning nature’s hard and beautiful lessons, and discovering
a love of place and each other strong and wild enough to renew them
and be carried into the future. |
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