Karl Marlantes, "Deep River"

Karl Marlantes discusses his book, "Deep River", at Politics and Prose.

Marlantes, a Vietnam vet, has been acclaimed for his powerful depictions of the experience of combat, first in fiction, with Matterhorn, and then in the memoir, What It Is Like To Go To War. For his third book he draws on his grandmother’s generation of Finnish immigrants to tell a compelling family saga—one with a moving love story at its center. Set near the old-growth forests along the Columbia River in the early years of the 20th century, the book follows the three Koski siblings as they build lives in their new homeland, the brothers by logging, and their sister by organizing the industry’s first labor unions.

Karl Marlantes graduated from Yale University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, before serving as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. He is the bestselling author of Matterhorn and What It Is Like to Go to War. He lives in rural Washington.

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Produced by Tom Warren