Setting

Guterson's descriptive passages about the settings of the novel have drawn a great deal of comment from critics and readers. Having lived in Washington for all but a year of his life, it is no wonder his descriptions of the landscapes are so rich and sensory. In chapter fourteen, Hatsue seeks solitude in the cedar woods:

In spring great shafts of sun would split the canopy
of trees and the litter fall of the forest would come
floating down—twigs, seeds, needles, dust bark, all
suspended in the hazy air—but now, in February, the
woods felt black and the trees looked sodden and
smelled pungently of rot. Hatsue went inland to
where the cedars gave way to firs hung with lichen
and moss. Everything was familiar and known to her
here—the dead and dying cedars full of punky heartwood,
the fallen, defeated trees as high as...