Idaho by Emily Ruskovich Published by Chatto & Windus on February 16th 2017
Genres: Literary Fiction
Pages: 320
Format: eBook, Kindle Book
One hot August day a family drives to a mountain clearing to collect birch wood. Jenny, the mother, is in charge of lopping any small limbs off the logs with a hatchet. Wade, the father, does the stacking. The two daughters, June and May, aged nine and six, drink lemonade, swat away horseflies, bicker, and sing snatches of songs as they while away the time.
But then something unimaginably shocking happens, an act so extreme it will scatter the family in every different direction.
In a story told from multiple perspectives and in razor-sharp prose, we gradually learn more about this act, and the way its violence, love and memory reverberate through the life of every character in Idaho.
**Special thanks to NetGalley & Random House for supplying my copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.**
Idaho is the wonderful literary debut work by Emily Ruskovich. I read a lot of amazing reviews for this book by my wonderful GR friends. Eventually I was encouraged to delve into this amazing book.
Actually this book left me speechless. It’s very confusing to give a brief summary about the book. Idaho can be seen from many perspectives. It’s an ongoing story. Something like water. I don’t know where to start. A once happy family of Wade and Jenny and there two little daughters June and May are struck with a very devastating tragic event that shatters their family forever. An inexplicable yet very evil act of violence.
However, Idaho is not a thriller or a crime novel. It’s rather a voyage into the human mind and soul. How can very little gestures bring around major changes? How does our deepest unconscious thoughts have tragic effect on the ones we love?
As I said before, this is a book where I find it hard to say how things started. It’s told from the multiple perspectives of its characters. As I read through, pain and love built inside me. It’s the very subtle pain that keeps on building till it really hurts. And how wonderful was it to discover this kind of love that comes intertwined with pain, regret and guilt. I couldn’t hate or blame any of the characters. I just felt for them.
Idaho is a book about love. And I don’t mean the romantic kind of love. I mean all kinds of love. Love so deep that it moves you. Yes, I was moved by this book. So great. So amazing. And so touching.
Idaho is also thought provoking. To what extent can someone feel responsible and guilty even if there’s nothing to tie them to a tragedy? Moreover, for how long can a person push him or herself into atonement? Can a lifetime be enough? Can loads of good erase the bad? And, even if people forgive you, can you forgive yourself?
The writing style was superb. The scenery was magnificent. Even the choice of Idaho as a location was great. Emily respected our minds. No unrealistic events. Everything went smoothly. Even the ending was great.
Finally, this is a book I really loved.
About Emily Ruskovich
Emily Ruskovich grew up in the mountains of northern Idaho. She graduated from the University of Montana and received an MA in English from the University of New Brunswick and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She was the 2011–2012 James C. McCreight Fiction Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her fiction has appeared in Zoetrope, One Story, and The Virginia Quarterly Review. She was a 2015 winner of the O. Henry Award for her story “Owl.”