At the Field’s End: Interviews with Twenty Pacific Northwest Writers by Nicholas O’Connell (review)

176 Western American Literature cussion of and recipes for Rocky Mountain Oysters. (If you are not familiar with this succulent dish you are probably not a true man or woman of the plains.) Some of the topics dealt with may appear to be excessively mundane, but it should be remembered that no tool or technique used for survival or for entertainment is without significance in the study of culture. Thus Hoy and Isern give particular emphasis to farming equipment and methods in order to establish what they refer to as “integrity of region.” Of course the informal tone of these brief essays makes them attractive. But overall the book’s effect is substantial. Facts and legends are here so well presented that we are reminded of the poetry of material objects and the pungency of ordinary human experience. GEORGE F. DAY University of Northern Iowa At the Field’s End: Interviews with Twenty Pacific Northwest Writers. By Nicholas O’Connell. (Seattle: Madrona Publishers, 1987. 322 pages, $12.95.) O’Connell’s collection of interviews is a welcome addition to a slowly evolving body of knowledge about the literature of the Northwest. To readers who have just found this rich accumulation of poems, short stories, and non­ fiction, these interviews provide a useful introduction. Preceding each inter­ view, O’Connell furnishes a succinct cameo biography, including a listing of awards and works. To scholars, the collection adds direct commentary on the nature of the writings and genesis of ideas, a likely source of information to help build a criticism and history of the literature of the Pacific Northwest. O’Connell designed the interviews to reveal development of craft and influences, while allowing space to explore the particular struggles and direc­ tions of individual writers. Especially noteworthy are the anecdotes about each writer’s development. Many of the writers speak of germinal periods where teachers like Theodore Roethke or John Gardner provided criticism that helped them discover subject and voice. Although there is no consensus among the writers on common influences, the inscription at the beginning of the text, a few lines from Theodore Roethke’s poem “The Far Field,” shows the source of O’Connell’s title for this collection, which reinforces the tribute given to Roethke by a fair number of the writers, especially as it applies to his integra­ tion of landscape into literature. The importance of landscape to writing about the Pacific Northwest, an inquiry that has received much attention in other quarters over the years, is a central topic in the interviews and receives strong support from writers like Barry Lopez and Gary Snyder, the first and last writers interviewed in the collection. Moreover, O’Connell states in his “Preface” that Northwest writers are following a seminal and traditional topic in American letters and one in which they have abundant resources because of the rich folklore about native Reviews 177 people whose lives and cultures were intertwined with nature. In the end there is no unanimity on this issue though; some writershad no opinion, and William Stafford pointed to language and the presence of certain writers as more potent forces than the landscape. Other topics like eastern publishers versus western writers, eastern religions (mysticism in the NW ), and the presence ofAmerican Indians appear in the interviews. This volume should find space on many bookshelves as a key reference on the literature and writers of the Pacific Northwest. D. A. HECKER Olympic College Liquid City: Houston Writers on Houston. Edited by Rita Saylors. Photo­ graphs by Paul Hester. (San Antonio, Texas: Corona Publishing Company, 1987. 117 pages, $14.00 paper.) Liquid City is a collection of essays, stories, poems, and a performance piece. The works, accompanied by interpretive black and white photographs, were commissioned for the Houston International Festival, a yearly celebra­ tion of the arts, but make no mistake: they are not simply conventional cham­ ber of commerce “booster” pieces that one might expect from commissioned works. They are the unique efforts of established creative writers living in Houston and responding to both its positive and negative features in their endeavors to define the city’s essence. The writing ranges from the objective to the surreal, and...