Martin Marten

by Brian Doyle

Overview

Dave is fourteen years old, eager and headlong. He is about to start high school, which is scary and alluring. Martin is a pine marten, a small, muscled hunter of the deep woods. He is about to leave home for the first time, which is scary and thrilling. Both of these wild animals are setting off on adventures on their native Mount Hood in Oregon, and their lives, paths, and trails will cross, weave, and blend. Why not come with them as they set forth into the forest and crags of the mountain and into the bruising wilderness of love, life, family, friends, enemies, wonder, mystery, and good things to eat?

Martin Marten is a braided coming-of-age tale like no other, told in Brian Doyle's joyous, rollicking style. Two energetic, sinewy, muddled, brilliant, creative animals, one human and one mustelid...come sprint with them through the deep, wet, green glory of Oregon's soaring mountain wilderness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250081056
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	04/12/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Brian Doyle is the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland and the author of seventeen books of essays, fiction, poems, and nonfiction, among them the novels Mink River and The Plover. Honors for his work include the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Editorial Reviews

"Behold a tale both wonderful and wise about the mysteries of adolescence, the interconnectedness of the natural world, and the nature of existence itself. Insightful, heartwarming, and beautifully written, Brian Doyle's Martin Marten will have you cheering for characters across the species divide."

From the Publisher

Martin Marten is a joyous celebration of the complexities of life told by a master storyteller. You will want to share it with your family and friends.

author of Unsaid Neil Abramson

Martin Marten is a daring and delightful creation. As well as any novelist working today, Brian Doyle blends animal and human kingdoms into a seamless hopeful narrative overflowing with the wonderment of life. So artfully does he weave the feelings and impulses of his imagined people and wildlife that Doyle himself must be half-man, half-critter. Martin Marten should be required reading for all humans.

Jim Lynch

Brian Doyle's gorgeous new novel is a hypnotic, luxurious journey through our natural world--a mind-bending celebration of how sweet each day can be. Martin Marten is composed with musical prose and sparkling, quirky characters who remind us that humanity is still capable of great good, and bliss might well lie just beyond our own back doors. A modern day Siddhartha set in the lush Pacific Northwest, Martin Marten awakens readers to the interconnected worlds that define the landscape of one glorious mountain, and the common boundaries of its infinite souls

author of Gemini Carol Cassella

Behold a tale both wonderful and wise about the mysteries of adolescence, the interconnectedness of the natural world, and the nature of existence itself. Insightful, heartwarming, and beautifully written, Brian Doyle's Martin Marten will have you cheering for characters across the species divide.

author of The Wind Is Not a River Brian Payton

11/01/2014
Published by an academic press, the luminously written Mink River was a dead giveaway that Doyle had a big literary future ahead of him, and he proved himself nicely with last year's The Plover. His new novel again enfolds nature, offering the parallel coming-of-age tales of 14-year-old Dave and furry little Martin, who is (yes) a marten, a woodlands mammal related to minks. Even as Dave enters high school and starts wondering what life will be like when he eventually leaves the family cabin on Mount Hood, Martin knows that soon it will be time to leave his mother and siblings behind.

Library Journal