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The Wind Is Not a River

A Novel

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

A gripping love story set in WW2 Japanese-occupied Alaska

Following the loss of his brother to the war in Europe, Canadian writer John Easley feels duty-bound to report the story that seems to have fallen into his lap: the 1943 Japanese occupation of the U.S. Aleutian Islands and the Allied attempts to drive them back into the sea. But when his plane is shot down over the island of Attu, he is exposed to the full fury of a wilderness known as "the Birthplace of Winds." He soon discovers that the island's indigenous residents (U.S. citizens) have all disappeared and that he has one choice: surrender or face starvation and madness alone.

Meanwhile, 3,000 miles away in Seattle, Helen Easley will not sit idly by. She invents a new identity, one designed to take her from her from the safety of her childhood home to the war in the North Pacific. There, Helen believes, she will find her husband and reclaim their love—if only her determination can overcome their fate.

So begins this moving and spellbinding portrait of lives forever altered by one of the least known battles of WW2, the only battle fought on American soil.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 21, 2013
      This top-notch WWII historical novel from Vancouver-based writer Payton (Hail Mary Corner) involves the little-remembered Japanese invasion and partial occupation of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. War correspondent John Easley is shot down in a seaplane along with six crewmembers in April 1943, just off the barren island of Attu. He and the only other survivor, young Texan aviator Karl Bitburg, hunker down in a beachside cave while hiding from the Japanese. Meanwhile, John’s wife, Helen, is living in Seattle while helping her father, Joe, recuperate from a stroke. She resolves to search for her missing husband, from whom she’s been separated ever since she delivered an ultimatum to him to choose between her and his work. John had chosen to leave Helen and continue what he regarded as his patriotic duty as a war reporter, spurred on by the memory of his kid brother Warren’s fatal crash into the English Channel while serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Helen joins a USO troupe assigned to Alaska but finds the strict censorship of military information a hindrance to her desperate quest. Payton has delivered a richly detailed, vividly resonant chronicle of war’s effect on ordinary people’s lives. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Associates.

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  • OverDrive Read
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Languages

  • English

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