Outside Man

Farmers don’t believe in luck.

＂...Early spring, out from beyond Bozeman with four hundred dollars, a couple of fishing poles, and a suitcase stuffed with year-old work clothes, Sam Lawrence was driving his car along the straight, flat highway stretching west from Spokane. It was about noon when he first saw Gainesville...＂

A strong, naturalistic style forges memorable dialogue and unforgettable characters: Harley and Sally Petersen and their two sons, Dan and Carl, whose rivalries are engulfing the lives of everyone, from Marilyn, the town’s tragic beauty, to the lively and unattached Ruth and Sue, to Lonnie, a bartender who sees what she wants to see, and ultimately, Sam, an itinerant farm worker who has come into the town by accident and has gotten swept up into the family saga. The story encompasses a tale of love and luck, whether good or bad, self -invention, and the inevitable fate decisions impose. Across these elements are a series of beautifully sweeping descriptions of farm life in the hills of the Palouse Country of eastern Washington.

Outside Man was originally published in 1984 in this redacted form.

MARC HEBERDEN was born in Spokane, Washington. Of English ancestry on his father’s side and Swedish-Scottish on his mother’s, his early years found him moving back and forth with his family between the Palouse country of Eastern Washington and the Puget Sound area. Before becoming a journalist and then an award-winning newspaper editor he worked on wheat farms and ranches and as a carpenter. While he regularly spends time in Bellingham WA, he now lives in a small town southwest of Paris.