Archive - February 21, 2011

Man Facing West (Stories) by Don Gayton (Colombia 1966-68) Thistledown Press $17.95 246 pages September 2010 Reviewed by Tom Hebert (Nigeria 1962-64) Don Gayton, or anyone who has lived on the Seattle —  or west — side of the Cascade Mountains, speaks of the vast, often high, mostly dry Columbia plateau — that is the remainder of Washington — as “East of the Mountains.” Real Washingtonians — not the usual run of umbrella Seattleites — also speak of the Columbia plateau as “the Okanogan.” This large farming and ranching region east of the mountains brims with wheat and meat, with a river that flows south to the Columbia, a valley, a plateau, sometimes a lake,  huge irrigated apple orchards — now laced with vineyards, a geographic assembly that runs headlong into Canada’s central British Columbia where there is a spelling change at the 49° parallel, switching from the American Okanogan . . .