Kirjahaku

A Century of November is the tale of Charles Marden, an apple grower and judge who sets off from his Vancouver Island home on an impulsive journey to Belgium, where his son, an Allied soldier in the First World War, has just died in battle at the very end of the war. Marden's single-minded mission: finding the exact spot where his son was killed. Across western Canada the Spanish flu rages - the very disease that claimed Marden's wife three weeks earlier. Upon arriving in England, he learns that his son left behind a pregnant girlfriend. Soon his search widens to include locating the girl, too. Nearing the front lines, Marden seems to descend into the fires of hell as he navigates the mine-strewn killing fields of the trenches, still reeking with poison gas. Will he find the girl, and will he find an answer to the forces that drove him halfway around the world? Author W. D. Wetherell has given us a novel of terrifying beauty, one that seems to occupy the place between waking and dreams. Its haunting words will linger long after the book is shut.

Although Yellowstone is our oldest, most iconic, and most popular national park, it is perhaps, in W. D. Wetherell's words, "America's least-known best-known place." Wetherell, arriving at the park on the eve of his fifty-fifth birthday, feels the need to examine where life's mileage has brought him. In the encounter that follows, a writer entering late middle age confronts not only a magnificent corner of the vast American landscape but also the American experience itself. Detailed in the wise, humorous, and lyrical language that has long distinguished W. D. Wetherell's award-winning fiction, this introspective journey merges the fascinating story of Yellowstone's history and geography with the author's own story—of marriage and aging, of fatherhood, and of the solace to be found in the beauty of the natural world. Most of all it's a loving tribute to Yellowstone in autumn, the season when the park and its glories are absolutely at their peak.

This book is characterized by narrative vitality and emotional range. In Wetherell’s stories a suburban retiree’s assumptions about the ethos of Long Island life are challenged and dismissed by a younger generation, a young English woman achieves miracles by dancing with wounded soldiers during World War II, a tennis-mad bachelor plays an interior game as real to him as an actual match, and a black drifter converts an Asian couple to his bleak vision of American life and finds strange kinship with them.

Where We Live is master story-teller W. D. Wetherell's fifth story collection, and his first in ten years, bringing together the best of his recent fictions. The stories exemplify the qualities readers and critics have praised in the past, while continuing to explore new directions in style, theme, and characterization. He illumines contemporary American life and culture by focusing on the forgotten places and people living on the edges, from a young Somali immigrant who finds an unlikely mentor in his attempt to come to terms with his new home, to a widower faced with the everyday challenges of his first day alone.

In a refreshing departure from today’s celebrity worship cultivated by reality television, tabloid photos, and celebrity twittering, award-winning novelist W. D. Wetherell's On Admiration celebrates the heroes and heroines who have peopled his life from his earliest years. Writers, singers, presidents, athletes, cartoonists, artists, activists, and many more are examined here—from Henry David Thoreau to Willa Cather to Albert Camus to Dwight D. Eisenhower to Winston Churchill to Beverly Sills—in this humorous, insightful memoir that speaks powerfully about the state of fame, celebrity culture, and honest admiration. Wetherell skillfully reminds us of the magic and mystery that comes with slow discovery—of that first awareness of those figures who awoke something within us, that inspired us as children, teenagers, and adults—forever altering the landscape of ourselves. From visiting Herman Melville’s study where Melville wrote Moby Dick to being a Rangers fan living in NYC—Wetherell examines the meaning of the American cultural landscape—and its remnants—in a candid and personal memoir like no other before him. With this lively and exacting series of pop culture essays, Wetherell joins the ranks of David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen, and Chuck Klosterman.