Tillamook Burn

The short stories and poems in "Tillamook Burn" capture the mood of growing up in Portland, Oregon during and after World War II. Highly evocative, they include memories of fathers, the fading Oregon landscapes, and studies of forgotten characters of the period. "They drove in silence, the shadows already beginning to flatten, and soon the knife disappeared; the Indian sat back and sighed deeply, as if he was exhausted by simply driving. Chris suddenly found himself less worried about their being found murdered beside the road, and more concerned about the rumbling in his stomach. He dreamed of home, the cool shade of his back yard where he could be right now eating peanut butter sandwiches and reading comic books. When he left home, he had thought he would be right back, and how it looked as though he would be in Celilo tonight, hungry, fighting the cold desert wind." Includes "The Chicken Which Became a Rat," from the collection "Best American Short Stories 1971."