Six Books by Noted Oregon Authors (and one by me)

by Stephen Holgate
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8 books
Few famous people come from Oregon. (Tonya Harding?) Maybe we prefer it that way. Famous people are a lot of fuss. However, this is a great state for readers. So it should be no surprise that Oregon is also a pretty good state for authors. I’ll try to draw attention to a few them with this list of six books by noted Oregonians. Like all such lists it’s subjective, but I’ll stand up for any of them.
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Sometimes a Great Notion

Ken Kesey, 2006
Though Kesey’s excellent One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is better known, Sometimes a Great Notion is the Great Oregon Novel, catching the spirit of the state and its rough-hewn culture. It’s of a multi-generational logging family living near the coast and contains all the great themes of honor, loyalty, love, and heartbreak. A compelling read. And, yeah, there’s plenty of rain.

Deep River

Karl Marlantes, 2020
Though not as well known (yet) as other Oregon writers, Marlantes has written two great novels. His Matterhorn may be the best novel about the Vietnam War. His more recent Deep River shows his depth and range. A story of immigrants and their children making a dangerous living, fishing near the mouth of the Columbia River or working in the nearby forests, makes for a great tale. Okay, more of it takes place in Washington than Oregon, but he and it deserve their place on this list. Despite its doorstop length, the story never flags. Did I mention there’s plenty of rain?

The Lathe Of Heaven

Ursula K. Le Guin, 2022
This Schrodinger’s Cat of a novel, in which everything is true and untrue at the same time, is a great work of imagination by one of the masters of science-fiction. And like all great books of science fiction, The Lathe of Heaven speaks to the human condition, addressing deep themes of environmental responsibility and difficult moral choices. Set in Portland early in the 21st century, this book has become a classic of the genre. Lots and lots of rain.

Fight Club

Chuck Palahniuk, 2011
What is it about Portland that makes people write really weird books? (Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love may be even weirder than this one.) Many of you know the movie with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. Fewer know that it came from a novel by Portlander, Chuck Palahniuk. Almost any description would contain spoilers, but this spooky tale will have you wondering about the nature of reality. There’s some rain.

Mink River

Brian Doyle, 2010
By turns steeped in the spirit of Northwest coastal tribes and almost-Joycean Irish imagery, this story of the stormy, loving, edgy relationships between neighbors in a seaside town brilliantly captures the feel of the tiny communities that dot Oregon’s coast. Few other regions hold this mix of the mystic and the everyday, and Doyle has captured it all. Rain figures prominently.

Honey in the Horn

Harold L. Davis, 1990
In the heyday of Hemingway, Steinbeck, Faulkner and Thomas Wolfe, it was Harold Davis who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with this rollicking, picaresque novel. Set during the homesteading days of 1906-1908 (the era when my grandmother came to Oregon and took up with the Holgates), this sprawling tale of crime, love, betrayal and redemption covers virtually every region of Oregon and just about everything that could happen to a soul back then. Great fun. There’s some rain.

Beezus and Ramona

Beverly Cleary, 2000
The above titles are all worthy books. But Beverly Cleary’s wonderful series, featuring Ramona Quimby, Henry Huggins, and a large cast of others, is, without a doubt, better known than any of them. Enchanting tens of millions of readers (not all of them children) over the decades, these tales are set in Cleary’s own childhood neighborhood in Portland. The books are, by turns, hilarious, thoughtful, and touching. I could put almost any of her titles here, but this is one of the most charming. I don’t recall any rain in this one. Must have been set in summer.

The Goddess and Martin Dayson

Stephen Holgate, 2024
I’ll leave it to readers to decide if I belong anywhere near this list. After my agent landed five novels of suspense and romance in foreign lands, I have returned home to Oregon in this one. Martin Dayson, defeated in his re-election for governor, licks his wounds in a tiny community near the Coast Range. While making a garden, he digs up a mysterious stone fertility icon that speaks to him in ways he cannot understand. At the same time, a mysterious young woman of nineteen keeps crossing his property despite his efforts to shout her off. These three elements weave a spell of mysticism, drama and humor that I hope readers will find compelling