The Woods - Paperback

by Ronald Lee Geigle (Author)

Blasting railways into the side of mountains, scaling Douglas firs that tower 200 feet. These visions draw 18-year-old Albert Weissler to a job with the Skybillings Logging Company in the high mountains of Washington State. But a train crash on a mountainside that kills a friend, and Albert's discovery that it was sabotage, quickly dash boyhood dreams and launch a saga of love, grand dreams, and transformation in the turbulent world of big-timber logging and labor unrest in late-1930s America. This is The Woods, part coming-of-age story, part historical novel. It is the story of Albert learning to survive in a dangerous and unforgiving environment; Albert's mother, Lydia, struggling to restart her life after Albert's father is killed in the woods; WWI veteran and Skybillings owner, Bud Cole, trying to rebuild his dream after the market crash destroyed him; and savvy firebrand Clare Ristall campaigning to win a political election, build a new union - and win Lydia's love. The Woods is a beautiful panorama of lives and dreams during one of the most defining moments of American history, as have's and have-not's, the powerful and the ordinary, struggle to survive in the wake of economic upheaval. This is a book that paints the inner complexities and nuances of its characters as beautifully as it portrays the raw splendor of the Northwest's ice-topped peaks and unrelenting natural power of the woods themselves.

Author Biography

Ronald Lee Geigle grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He attended the University of Washington in Seattle, then headed for Washington, DC, where he has spent the past thirty years as a speechwriter, congressional aide, and public relations consultant. "You learn a lot about people over that many years in the nation's capital," says Geigle. "And you learn a lot about politics. It is always a surprise to me--despite all these years in DC--what those two do to each other." Geigle makes politics a central part of his novel, The Woods, which tells a coming-of-age story set during a period of significant labor unrest in the Pacific Northwest during the late 1930s. As the nation emerges from the Great Depression, both haves and have-nots struggle for financial survival and, more importantly, to achieve their dreams in the face of adversity, danger, and political ambition. Geigle won first prize in the National Press Club's 1998 fiction writing contest for a chapter from The Woods.