SELECTED REVIEWS OF
THE DIVIDE
'...an effective, if melancholy portrait..."
-- Kircus Reviews
"...lyrical novel..."
-- Booklist
"A beautifully written novel."
--Sunday Oklahoman
"Steady in pace and flow, the novel moves with quiet elegance and restraint and will no doubt tug quite successfully at the heartstrings."
--
Today (Singapore)
"The Divide explores age-old themes of love and loss against a modern, topical backdrop and does it well."
-- Edmonton Journal
SELECTED REVIEWS OF
THE SMOKE JUMPER
"[Evans’] richest work to date...compulsively readable."
--The Denver Post
"Epic...compelling...crackles with suspense."
--The Seattle Times
"Brim[s] with cowboy stoicism and wide-open spaces...Evans possesses an unusual ability to write big, all-encompassing, almost cinematic scenes."
--USA Today
SELECTED REVIEWS OF
THE LOOP
The New York
Times Book Review, Erik Burns
"[Evans'] true gifts are demonstrated in his colorful, captivating depictions of
the land."
The Wall
Street Journal, Elizabeth Bukowski
"It's an entertaining story, and Mr. Evans does a good job of describing the kind
of controversy over wildlife that has torn apart many Western communities."
The Los Angeles Times
"Fascinating...Moving...A big, engrossing book [with] an unexpected ending
that surprises mightily."
San Francisco Chronicle
"Sprawling...Compelling...A real page-turner."
Houston Chronicle
"Engaging...Intense and gripping."
Chicago Sun-Times
"Gripping...Evans knows how to depict complicated emotions and interactions;
he paints a compelling portrait."
From
Booklist , July 19, 1998
The secret to Evans' success is that there's something for everyone in his
smooth-gliding novels. His first, The Horse Whisperer (1995), has pleased readers
and moviegoers alike with its Big Sky country setting, mythic links between human beings
and horses, and electric love story. Evans continues to mine this fertile terrain with
skill and ardor in his second novel, this time spotlighting another American icon, the
wolf. Our fascination with wolves is a profound one, and Evans makes good use of it,
constructing dramatic confrontations between a pack of wolves, a small ranching community
called Hope, Montana, and a federal biologist. Buck Calder, a direct descendant of the
so-called wolfers of a hundred years ago who massacred wolves by the thousands, is a
wealthy and arrogant rancher and philanderer and Hope's most vocal advocate for wolf
annihilation after a wolf kills a dog in sight of his baby grandson. To combat
Calder's
threat of violence, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service calls in a top wolf biologist,
Helen Moss, a wry young woman struggling with a broken heart. As she and Buck square off,
Buck's misfit son, Luke, a handsome boy with a stutter who is already in love with the
wolves, falls hard for Helen, adding fuel to the fire. Evans, bless him, has a thing for
strong and tender women characters, a knack for clever dialogue, and a gift for wedding
romance with suspense. And he's even handy with metaphors. The "loop" of the
title refers to both a diabolical snare for killing wolf cubs and the grand circular
scheme of things, as in "the living and the dead were joined in a loop as ancient and
immutable as the moon that arced above them." A fine and thoughtful popular novel. Donna
Seaman
Copyright© 1998, American Library Association. All rights reserved
From
Kirkus Reviews , August 1, 1998
A drier version of Jaws, from the best-selling British novelist (The Horse Whisperer,
1995) whose distinctions so far are of scale rather than content. Hope, Montana, is not
exactly the crossroads of a million lives. Barely more than a crossroads itself, its a
quiet ranching community whose inhabitants are mostly descendants of the original white
settlers who moved in a hundred years ago. But a frightening rash of brutal wolf
attacks against both cattle and people makes Hope the center of more attention than it had
ever looked for. Dan Prior, the local rep of the US Wildlife Service, is an Eastern
transplant whose long struggle to gain acceptance from the locals is threatened by his
role as the enforcer of hated government conservation laws, and his life is suddenly made
all the more difficult when the cattlemen (like ranchers Buck Calder and Abe Harding) take
it upon themselves to kill the wolves in defiance of the Endangered Species Act. When the
hunters are arrested and tried, a media riot puts Hope on the map and brings in its wake
environmental crackpots as well as bona fide experts like biologist Helen Ross. Helen is
opposed to killing the wolves, but her position is compromised by the adulation of Buck
Calder's teenaged son Luke, who falls in love with her. Luke's troubled family is haunted
by the death of his brother Henry some years earlier; his mother Eleanor responded to the
death, and to her husband's repeated infidelities, by losing her Catholic faith and
retreating into depression and despair. Meantime, Helen really just wants to get to the
bottom of the wolf slayings, while Buck is looking for trouble and Dan just wants to keep
the townsfolk from blowing their lids altogether. Ah, how will it all end? The same sort
of sentimental pastiche, written in the same New Age Harlequin prose, that made The Horse
Whisperer one of the most inexplicable succsess stories of the 1990s. (First printing of
650,000; Literary Guild main selection; author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus
Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
21 WEEKS ON THE NEW YORK TIMES
BESTSELLER LIST
SELECTED REVIEWS OF
THE HORSE WHISPERER
From
Booklist , August 19, 1995
The advance ballyhoo about this first novel, as well as the huge advance paid to its
author, screenwriter Nicholas Evans, is more than enough to make the skeptical reader
wince. Hold back those winces if you can, because this is a book of rare power and beauty,
a story told simply but elegantly. Teenager Grace Maclean loses a leg in a terrible
accident while riding her horse, Pilgrim. Grace and Pilgrim are both emotionally scarred
as well as physically devastated by the accident. Realizing that the fates of her daughter
and the horse are inextricably linked, Grace's mother, high-powered editor and journalist
Annie Graves, launches an all-out campaign to find a "horse whisperer," someone
who can cure troubled horses with only a calm voice and a soothing touch. She finds her
savior in Tom Booker, a man well known in equestrian circles for his almost mystical
skills with horses. Annie packs up Grace and Pilgrim, leaves Grace's father with his law
practice in New York, and moves to Montana to try to convince the horse whisperer to help
them. Most of the novel describes Tom's work to rebuild all the lives that have been
shattered by the accident. Inevitably, love blossoms between the gentle horseman and the
uprooted sophisticate, a love with both wonderful and tragic consequences. Expect this
outstanding novel to be the talk of the season: it has a 600,000-copy first printing, and
Robert Redford has already bought the movie rights for a cool $3 million. The numbers are
remarkable, to be sure, but the most remarkable thing about this book is that it actually
earns the great popularity it seems destined to enjoy. George Needham
Copyright© 1995, American Library Association. All rights reserved
