The Other

The Other emerged wholesale from wherever it had been, until then, lying in wait for me.  I had only to tap into the vein of my adolescence to open the subterranean terrain where it had coalesced on its own.

The Other is set in Seattle in the mid to late 20th century--my own milieu.  It's loosely autobiographical in its externals, but deeply so in the questions it examines.  It's the story of a friendship between doppelgangers of a kind, or between shadow figures--two young men who, because they are versions of one another, are locked in a friendship freighted with responsibilities.

The novel's narrator, Neil Countryman, becomes an English teacher and, comfortably so, petit bourgeois, with all the happy mediums and daily contentments therein entailed.  Meanwhile his mirror image, or alter ego, John William Barry, devolves into a mountain-dwelling hermit who purports to brook no compromise.  And so I explored my own inner terrain, in a novel that, with passing years, remains exceedingly close to my heart. 

Praise

A New York Times Notable Book

A Seattle Times Book of the Year

“Gorgeous, haunting…. A deeply considered tragedy of social alienation and hubris.” The Washington Post Book World

"When a novelist scores as popular a breakthrough as Guterson did with Snow Falling on Cedars, a long shadow is cast over subsequent efforts. Here, he succeeds in out-distancing that shadow." Kirkus Review.

"'Remarkable ... a highly significant contribution to American literature."  The Guardian

 "Guterson's books keep getting better ... A moving portrait of male friendship."  New York Times

"Powerfully wrought ... Guterson writes beautiful, persuasive prose, harking back to Hemingway."  Telegraph