Raven's Children

As a fellow longtime Alaska bush resident, I have long admired this book and believe it to be among the best two or three ever written on the collision between contemporary Alaska Native culture and the world Outside. This book was a masterpiece when it was written (especially those parts focusing on the life of his Yu'pik friend) and to this day remains a candidate for the most overlooked and under-read book focusing on modern Alaska Native life. No varnish or overwrought cultural worship, just an empathetic, realistic account. This book is brave and unflinching and inspired me as a writer. I wrote Carey a letter years ago telling him how much I appreciated this book and I still feel the same. Read it if you can find it. Carey and his gem of a book deserved far better than they got. --Nick Jans, contributing editor, Alaska Magazine.

This book is lyrical, yet full of the stark reality of life in Bush Alaska--and in this case, the raw bleakness and strange loveliness found uniquely on the Lower Kuskokwim River. (The memories I have of that place are stored wherever one keeps suppressed rememberances of lonely places in the mind.) I wonder if the spring floods still carry the dump down through the middle of town at Bethel