This book is an adventure--capturing some of the energy that it took to settle the west. It is set in the Pacific Northwest in a fictional town of Port Bonita on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. The story jumps back and forth between centuries, from the end of the 19th century, when the town swaggers with a "crude and youthful vigor" and a "laughing, belching, bawdy can-do spirit," to the early years of the 21st century, when Port Bonita is more of a shadow of it's former self rather than on the brink of breaking loose.
The story has subplots as well as a main point, and it reminded me of Louise Eldrich's 'Plague of Doves' (easier to follow than that, but equally well written, and with the inter-relatedness of the people in different time periods)--the stories are also linked by a sense of place and rugged terrain that looms over everything. It's populated by a crowded cast of characters from then and now. Most are misfits, inventing and reinventing themselves--much as you would suspect from the settling generation, but the characteristics persist into the present.
In 1890, Ethan Thornburgh, a self-styled "idea man" and failed accountant from Chicago, dreams of damming the mighty Elwha River and building an empire in the middle of nowhere.
By 2006, his great-grandson, Jules Thornburgh, is the sad-sack manager of the town's last fish processing plant. The town's big festival is still Dam Days, "proudly presented in part by your neighbors at Wal-Mart." But the days of Thornburgh Dam are numbered. It's being demolished as part of a river restoration project. We get to know the two men well by book's end, and it is a very pleasant journey.
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