A Wild and Heavenly Place by Robin Oliveira
Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons
Publication date: February 13, 2024
Genres: Book Clubs, Fiction, Historical
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A Wild and Heavenly Place by Robin Oliveira begins in 1870s Glasgow where orphaned, teenage Samuel, is living hand-to-mouth working in a shipyard and taking care of his little sister. He’s in love with Hailey, a wealthy girl he admires from afar. Until circumstances throw them together and they begin to fall in love, only to be pulled apart and separated by half a world.
Samuel’s joy is Sundays when he and Alison go to church. Not just because the church offers the only real meal they’ll get all week, but also because he can spend the time staring at Hailey without her knowing. When his act of heroism brings them together it’s against her mother’s strong objections. But Hailey is intrigued by this young man so different from the ones in her social circle. They meet in secret for a time until financial calamity causes the ruin of her family. In desperation, her father, an engineer in the coal mining industry hears there are jobs in the Pacific Northwest. Before they leave Hailey lets Samuel know where they’re headed. In his naivete and having no understanding of America’s size he determined to follow her. Six grueling months later he and Alison find themselves in Seattle, but Hailey and her family aren’t there.
Of course, there is much to follow in A Wild and Heavenly Place, but the novel is more about the journey than the destination, literally and figuratively. First there is the months long physical journey of getting from Scotland to the West Coast, something that entails sailing down around Panama from New York and then back up the coast. Then there’s the reality of late 1800s Seattle—a small town, constructed largely of wood buildings thanks to all the timber, that regularly burns down and has to be rebuilt. Washington was a territory not a state and after the end of the Civil War there was an influx of freed enslaved people as well as European immigrants, and the Chinese population that had been brought to build the railroads. It was a true melting pot of ethnicities and cultures.
My familiarity with the locale enhanced my enjoyment of the novel, but in addition Oliveira tells a great story. Even when I disagreed with characters’ decisions I still cared and wanted to find out what happened. It all came together in a story that was thoroughly enjoyable and wrapped up neatly. As the weather shifts into the cold and wet of a Northwest fall A Wild and Heavenly Place is a great book to curl up with and immerse yourself in another real time and place.
If you’d like classic fiction about the Pacific Northwest I highly recommend Ken Kesey’s Sometimes A Great Notion.
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