Pacific Northwest readers ought to become more acquainted with the writings of Bette Lynch Husted. Too often her valuable books have been overlooked.
Her first book, "Above the Clearwater: Living on Stolen Land" (2004), an autobiographical volume, traces Husted's life from a dysfunctional family in backcountry Idaho to graduate school and teaching in eastern Oregon. Next came "At This Distance" (2010), a collection of poems overflowing with reflections on human-landscape connections. Then, "Lessons from the Borderlands" (2012), another memoir provocatively detailing the author's personal, family and teaching experiences.
Now, "All Coyote's Children" (Oregon State University Press, 237 pages, $18.95), Husted's debut novel. This lyrically written work of contemporary fiction focuses on the much-challenged life of Annie Fallon, a recently widowed farm wife and teacher in eastern Oregon. She has mysteriously lost her husband, Jack, who disappeared into the mountains searching for their troubled son, Riley. These traumatic tests prove too much for Annie, and she is committed to rehabilitation before the novel opens. Now she is back on the Fallon farm, trying to reassemble her life.
Husted's novel begins on the dark side but gradually makes its way along a path of hope and healing. First Annie has to survive and then move toward recovery. In her traumatic journey, she finds encouragement and support from family, community and neighbors and friends. She learns, step by step, to carefully share her story and to listen to the stories of friends. Even her now-gone husband has left her a package of teaching and personal notes that help her to recover.
Husted has produced an intense story, sometimes so bleak that it is difficult for a reader to proceed. Yet the late Portland author Ursula K. Le Guin is dead center in her conclusions about the novel: "The emotional intensity of 'All Coyote's Children' might be overwhelming, if the characters weren't so humanly loveable."
A handful of major characters carries much of the author's heavy and somber lessons. Annie's close relationship with son Riley, his buddy Alex and his girlfriend Mattie illuminate her dual abilities to mother as well as to learn from young people. From a different angle, Jack's aunt, Leona, serves as the sympathetic parent Annie missed in her own alcoholic mother. Several other characters provide cultural complexities and diverse viewpoints, adding much to Husted's complex story.
The author's clear poetic talents emerge in her poignant treatment of human-land relationships in northeastern Oregon farm country and nearby mountains. Her depictions of weather, change of seasons and flora and fauna capture one's attentions - and admiration.
No less interest-whetting are Husted's sensitivity to cross-cultural links, borders and barriers. For the most part, Annie sees and comprehends connections between white and Native peoples and parents and offspring, but the author also provides samples of the racism, conflicts and jealousies that divide and complicate family and community. As Annie's story unfolds, she realizes anew how to avoid the racial-ethnic and age differences that separate and how to embrace the stories and support that provide paths through her challenges.
Mattie, Riley's girlfriend and Leona's granddaughter, furnishes a defining metaphor that illustrates what seems to be the author's intriguing worldview. The world is a sphere, Mattie points out, uniting the past and present and thus preparing for the future. The world is also an encompassing place, demonstrating how varied cultures should listen and learn from one another.
The final pages of the novel furnish potential solutions for Annie's difficult journey. She gradually perceives that, as a united group, she and her friends are "all coyote's children." Joined, they can make it.
Thoughtful, superbly written and redolent with inviting characters and ideas, Husted's first novel deserves the attention and prizes it should receive.