Deep Creek

I was sad that this book was so poorly written!

"Deep Creek", Dana Hand's debut novel, is richly satisfying in at least four ways. It meets my first requirement of all fiction: it tells an engaging story. Next, that story is firmly grounded in actual historical events, many of them of the sort that may not automatically come to mind at the mention of the word "Western". The animating event of "Deep Creek" was an actual mass murder of immigrant Chinese gold miners in 1887. The book's western setting (Idaho in the 1880s) is vivid, detailed, tactile, not an opera backdrop with painted cardboard forests and mountains. Dana Hand has a real sense of locality and landscape. As in many fine books topography becomes a kind of ancillary character. Finally, the actual human characters are varied, developed, and fully credible. At one level "Deep Creek" could be described as a "detective novel". It is certainly enough of one that a reviewer must avoid spoiling its deft plot with a dull summary. Its quiet hero, Joe Vincent, is of a type you have probably met before: a good man whose duty it is to defend and enforce legality and civil values, placed in a situation where law and civilization seem at times mere words. In him there's a hint of the sheriff of "High Noon" and perhaps more than a hint of the lawman of "No Country for Old Men". I found myself closely identifying with him not in hero-worship but in simple and genuine fellow feeling. It is true that I was so deeply caught up in the book's central and horrific crime that I was hoping against hope that its resolution would be some kind of ideal and definitive justice that, unfortunately, the real world too seldom affords. Any reader who likes a good western will like "Deep Creek". Though it is beautifully written, it is not oppressively "literary". Though its central satisfactions are those of a fascinating tale told in a fascinating manner, it touches upon themes of perennial relevance in American history: political, racial, legal, ethical, ecological. We want to read a book like this for the story, certainly; but there's way more to it than the shoot-`em-up. Dana Hand naturally invites comparison with some of the greats of the modern western, certainly with Larry McMurtry and Wallace Stegner. One of the several settings in Stegner's great "Angle of Repose" is actually the mining country of Idaho; but what really makes Dana Hand his soul mate is their shared meditation on the American west as the laboratory of our American civilization. Don't read the first few pages of "Deep Creek" unless you have a couple of hours free. You won't want to put it down.

This is a biased review. Will Howarth, one of the authors of this book, outlined the story line to me over a beer at a hotel bar in Austin, Texas over twenty years ago while on a research trip for an upcoming article for National Geographic. I knew then if properly done, it had the potential to become a great novel. I was fortunate enough to be one of the few to read the first draft of this book and after reading it, I knew they had pulled it off. The other reviews have more than adequately described the characters and story line in this novel. My only contribution is a selfish one. Being one of the millions that derive a great deal of pleasure between two hard covers of a book, I can only hope they follow up this one with many more. Virgil Howarth Austin, Tx.

The place is remote Hell's Canyon, 1887, along the Snake River in the Idaho Territory in the Pacific Northwest. The event is a horrendous massacre of over thirty Chinese miners, systematically mutilated, tortured, violated and murdered, a few of the bodies floating downriver to be caught by a young girl, Nell Vincent, fishing with her father, Joe, an ex-marshal. Now a police judge in the Territory, Joe takes it upon himself to investigate the shocking murders, traveling upriver with an Indian guide and a representative of the Chinese corporation responsible for the miners, Lee Loi. Vincent has a personal history with the guide, Grace Sundown, but both parties put their feelings aside in pursuit of the greater good, braving considerable danger to bring the murderers to trial. Written under the pseudonym of Dana Hand, Will Howarth and Anne Matthews have constructed a harrowing account of an actual event, the victims of little account because of the color of their skin. The Idaho Territory is a brutal place, anti-immigrant sentiment spreading like a virus to accommodating ears. By the time the culprits are charged by the law, Vincent's journey will have unearthed some ugly truths and not a few political ambitions in a land rich with potential: "Sometimes it seemed the war had taken a breather, then sent its unfinished business west and north." Joe takes up the cause of the dead, relentless in his pursuit, the action moving between Joe's investigation and the activities in the miner's camp the year before the massacre, a grim picture of their daily lives, determination and skills and the hardships endured, men with dreams and ambitions, joys and sorrows. The mountain canyons are filled with the screams of the dying, the massacre haunting Vincent until the trial, where frontier justice and an all-white jury favor white defendants. But in the course of his assignation with true evil, Vincent exposes the venal motives of greedy men and the black heart of a rogue with a silver tongue and the eyes of a wolf. Vincent faces his nemesis, surviving him only with the aid of Grace Sundown, Lee Loi and two young Chinese witnesses to the heinous murders. One man's courage does much to heal the damage of a few blighted souls, racial animus exposed in a violent, riveting tale at a time in history when the frontier is forged by saints and sinners. Luan Gaines/2010.

This excellent novel is based on a true story, a tragedy which occurred on the Oregon side of Snake River south of Lewiston, Idaho, in 1887. Several of the characters were real people and all of the characters are wonderfully drawn, fully evolved representatives of western types. The story begins as Judge Joe Vincent and his daughter go fishing and find a dead, mutilated Chinese man. Then more bodies are found, evidence of a mass murder of terrible proportions which will greatly affect Vincent and everyone he knows. It is also the story of how Indians, half-breeds, and Chinese people were abused and persecuted as not fully human. Once I got into the story and felt like I knew the main characters, I simply couldn't put the book down. Dana Hand's clean, spare composition beautifully depicts the time and place. I highly recommend Deep Creek.

The story and characters reveal bit by bit, which each chapter bringing further understanding into the history of the pioneer northwest, Chinese work force, post Native American warrior time and the human characteristics of the individuals from ambition, greed, prejudice, honor, loyalty and evil. I found myself unable to turn off my reading light at the usual time and thinking about the book during the work day. Many books I have read informed and others have entertained me, but Deep Creek resides among a small number that have influenced and deepened my understanding.