Why a Booktrail?
2000s: A small and fictional town in Oregon is brought to life by Brian Doyle’s vividly evoked writing on Neawanaka. You won’t want to leave..
Mink River
What you need to know before your trail
A town can only be described by the lives and actions of it people – a good description for the town of Neawanaka as depicted in this novel.
This small town is unlike any you have seen before however – for this is a town with magic and mayhem in its heart. Magical realism permeates its people and their actions but its the mix of human reality and mother natures quirks which paints the real picture of this small hidden but never to be forgotten part of Oregon.
Locations
ResetTravel Guide
Beneath the hills that used to boast the biggest trees in the history of the world, the fictional Neawanaka
A town not big not small
In the hills in Oregon on the coast
Bounded by four waters: one muscular river, two shy little creeks, one ocean.
The people who live here are just as much the landscape as the landscape itself – their jumbled lives and tangled web they create with their love affairs good and bad is like a mini soap opera of sorts. For Neawanaka has a varied list of characters – there’s a doctor, groups of Irish immigrants, loggers and even a river who has a part to play and a story to tell.
Oh and the people here have an opinion on everything and anything – who else would call Joan or Arc ‘ a meddler and look what happened to her, poor thing”
There’s a Department of Public Works that gives opinions, gives haircuts and even counts insects – a range of tasks that come onto its plate in this quaint unique community. There’s also an amazing amount of wood growing in and around the region so the loggers are kept busy -busy telling and adding to the stories which come from this part of the world. As for the Irish immigrants who come here ‘with fish leaping about all over the place in their eyes’ or for the woman called No Horses who works for the Dept of Public works – who got her name as ‘our people were the best horse stealers ever’.. this is a town of characters and stories to tell.
The booktrail above contains some places we’ve picked out as being other highlights of Oregon and to give a feel of fictional Neawanaka
Where Next?
