The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

PULLMAN—Written to spark interest in and celebrate the Northwest’s literary heritage, a new essay collection, Salmon Eaters to Sagebrushers: Washington’s Lost Literary Legacy, has just been published by Washington State University (WSU) Press. Author Peter Donahue hopes readers will share his delight in discovering these early novels, memoirs, and poems about the Northwest. Based on his popular, long-running Retrospective Review column in the Washington State Historical Society journal Columbia: The Magazine of Northwest History, Donahue’s new book is a hybrid of literary criticism, history, and biography. He combines reappraisals of more than forty titles with short excerpts and author profiles, including a former superintendent of Benton Country schools, Leland Frederick Cooley, Martha Hardy, William Attaway, Allis McKay, Margaret Thompson, and others.

Salmon Eaters to Sagebrushers gives an informed and careful examination of their “vintage” fiction, nonfiction, and poetry works—all at least fifty years old. These long-forgotten Washington State classics once enjoyed wide regional, national, and even international readership. Some were bestsellers. Stories of homesteading, apple growing, raising an orphaned bear cub, Depression-era Yakima, and constructing the Grand Coulee Dam and North Cascades Highway captured readers’ imaginations. They offered vivid depictions of the region’s people and places, and sometimes, harsh renderings that contrasted previously whitewashed history. While most have fallen out of print and circulation, collectively they reveal an impressive legacy.

Each of the included authors made notable contributions to Northwest literature. The selections span 70 years—from the end of the pioneer period in the late 1800s to the mid-1960s—and evoke countless aspects of the Northwest. In portraying everyday life, presenting sub-regions such as the Columbia Basin, Grand Coulee, and the Yakima Valley, and casting a critical eye on social issues such as white settlement and early industrialization, they reflect how Northwesterners regarded themselves and their region throughout most of the last century—perceptions that continue to shape Northwest identity.

Peter Donahue is the author of four works of fiction set in Washington, including Madison House and Three Sides Water, and is co-editor of the anthologies Reading Seattle and Reading Portland. He currently teaches English at Wenatchee Valley College-Omak in the Okanogan Valley

Salmon Eaters to Sagebrushers is paperback, and lists for $26.95. It is available through bookstores nationwide, direct from WSU Press at 800-354-7360, or online at wsupress.wsu.edu. A nonprofit academic publisher associated with Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, WSU Press concentrates on telling unique, focused stories of the Northwest.