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Idaho

Author(s): Emily Ruskovich

Novel

A stunning debut novel about love and forgiveness, about the violence of memory and the equal violence of its loss--from O. Henry Prize-winning author Emily Ruskovich Finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award Ann and Wade have carved out a life for themselves from a rugged landscape in northern Idaho, where they are bound together by more than love. With her husband's memory fading, Ann attempts to piece together the truth of what happened to Wade's first wife, Jenny, and to their daughters. In a story written in exquisite prose and told from multiple perspectives--including Ann, Wade, and Jenny, now in prison--we gradually learn of the mysterious and shocking act that fractured Wade and Jenny's lives, of the love and compassion that brought Ann and Wade together, and of the memories that reverberate through the lives of every character in Idaho. In a wild emotional and physical landscape, Wade's past becomes the center of Ann's imagination, as Ann becomes determined to understand the family she never knew--and to take responsibility for them, reassembling their lives, and her own. Praise for Idaho "You know you're in masterly hands here. [Emily] Ruskovich's language is itself a consolation, as she subtly posits the troubling thought that only decency can save us. . . . Ruskovich's novel will remind many readers of the great Idaho novel, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping. . . .  [A] wrenching and beautiful book."--The New York Times Book Review "Sensuous, exquisitely crafted."--The Wall Street Journal "The first thing you should know about Idaho, the shatteringly original debut by O. Henry Prize winner Emily Ruskovich, is that it upturns everything you think you know about story. . . . You could read Idaho just for the sheer beauty of the prose, the expert way Ruskovich makes everything strange and yet absolutely familiar."--San Francisco Chronicle "Mesmerizing . . . [an] eerie story about what the heart is capable of fathoming and what the hand is capable of executing."--Marie Claire "Idaho is a wonderful debut. Ruskovich knows how to build a page-turner from the opening paragraph."--Ft. WorthStar-Telegram "Ruskovich's debut is haunting, a portrait of an unusual family and a state that becomes a foreboding figure in her vivid depiction."--The Huffington Post


Idaho by Emily Ruskovich is a haunting debut. The novel has at its heart an act of incomprehensible violence, an act that leaves one child dead, and another missing. This single act devastates a family. Ann, our eyes and ears in this story, is the second wife of Wade, who is battling dementia. As Wade loses his memory she navigates us through his life, and that of Jenny - his first wife - and their two children, May and June. She is the keeper of the secrets, of the history of this family and all that has befallen them. Some memories she pieces together, others she re-imagines, coming to a place in her own life where she is the bearer of this sadness, the person that holds the responsibility for attempting to redeem the family, as well as herself.

Wade's dementia is a cruel genetic inheritance, one that has taken both his father and grandfather early in their lives. He feels it creeping up on him, but he is unable to delay it despite his efforts to escape from it both physically, by moving from the plains to the mountains, and mentally, by learning the piano (from the local school's music teacher, Ann), and, as it advances, his memories of the children fade but his feelings of grief and anger intensify and confuse him. An anger that shows itself in violent outbursts, often placing Ann in danger, followed by wallowing regret. 

As the story continues, Ann becomes more fully focussed on the missing child, who would now be a young woman, and the role of the mother in this tragedy. Piecing together snippets of information, day-dreaming in the truck parked beyond the house, coming across small mementos of the past, leads Ann to strike up a covert connection with Jenny. This unusual bond between the two women formed in an environment of guilt, loss and a desire for redemption is strikingly affecting. 

Ruskovich's writing is rich and descriptive - the heat bears down with its itch-making insects, the snow deadens their lives, engulfing the humans who live on the mountain in a cloak of silent threat. Place, in this novel, not only acts as a catalyst for damage but is also a metaphor for the psychological landscape. The attention to small details and glimpses of perspective build a textured canvas, which both reveals and conceals. This is a novel that will stay with you, and, while gruelling in parts, although never grotesque, it is a fascinating portrayal of how people make new landscapes, both real and imagined, from their personal tragedies, and their desire to outlive their trauma. 
{STELLA}

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Winner International Dublin Literary Award 2019

"Idaho is a world of vivid particularity, a collection of evanescent traces and tracks, stains and remnants" * Guardian * "It's a set-up that reads straight out of the darkest of psychological thrillers ... That an act of such brutality inspires storytelling as beautiful as this is reason enough for this debut novel to stand out from the crowd" * Independent * "Writing that has the cool sharpness of lemonade... Unflinching, unfrilly, multi-layered storytelling that is both beautiful and devastating" -- Rachel Joyce "You're in masterly hands here... will remind many of the great Idaho novel, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping... wrenching and beautiful" * New York Times Book Review * "At first glance this novel looks like a typical example of the 'post-catastrophe' genre... In fact, Idaho is deeper and broader -- and far more interesting... Ruskovich is not afraid of tackling the messy ambiguity of 'real' life, nor the difficulty of truly knowing another person, and she delivers her revelations with assurance and skill" -- Kate Saunders * The Times *

Emily Ruskovich grew up in the Idaho Panhandle, on Hoodoo mountain. Her fiction has appeared in Zoetrope, One Story and the Virginia Quarterly Review. A winner of a 2015 O. Henry Award and a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, she now teaches creative writing at the University of Colorado, Denver. Idaho is her first novel.

General Fields

  • : 9780099593959
  • : Random House
  • : Random House
  • : 0.224
  • : January 2018
  • : 198mm X 129mm
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Emily Ruskovich
  • : Paperback
  • : English
  • : 813.6
  • : 308