The High Traverse

Richard Blanchard

Synopsis: 

     One of the oddest novels we’ve ever published, The High Traverse combines photographs, letters, images, and question, questions, questions to depict the dying moments of a human. The reader is drawn onward by several mysteries: the elusive Miss Wright, a primary school teacher who still fills the dying man’s thoughts; the competition between the two brother; the role the father played in World War II-and not least, just who is it who is dying? The father? A brother? Or is some part of all three, and of the grandsons too, inevitably dying? Too, the reader is drawn by the juncture of sensuality and death, a juncture that is disarmingly eased by the novel’s seemingly grammar-school diction. Blanchard, himself a mountain climber, underlines this inquiry with stunning photographs and evocative images of mountains to evoke much of the myth associated with our final moments.

ISBN 0-942979-67-2, Library binding, $24.00              Sale $12.00

ISBN 0-942979-68-0, Trade paper, $11.00                  Sale $5.50

192 pages

32 photographs

Richard Blanchard is the author of The High Traverse, and his short stories have appeared in The Quarterly.  He was born in New Jersey and now divides his time between Idaho and the Northeast.

   We own our own car.  I know Pop is not afraid of anything there is.  My skis are out by the door.  Soldiers do not cry.  Pop says Bob and me are just like two peas in a pod.  You should see Pop’s trophies.  Do they call you names?  Miss Wright says to say whatever we are thinking of.  This is my new snowsuit.  He calls me Bob sometimes.  I kept my eyes open when the doctor sewed me up.  Please let it keep snowing.  Purdy has a dog.  Do you think they see angels when they fly up high in planes?  These are my good mittens.  I see the top from here.  We get the same presents.  I say my prayers at night.  Do you know where Pop is?  What will happen when we die?  He said to wait.  Where are they?  Is he out there with Bob?

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