The Other

The bestselling, award-winning author of Snow Falling on Cedars and Our Lady of the Forest gives us a deeply engrossing comingof-age tale about friendship, ethics, alienation, and the road to maturity. John William Barry and Neil Countryman are best friends who share a love for the outdoors. After high school, Neil marries and becomes a devoted schoolteacher, while John William, unwilling to "prostitute his soul," drops out of society, building himself a secret home in a remote forest, a place he and Neil discovered together and promised each other never to reveal. This pact is put to the test when John William enlists Neil in his plan to fake his own disappearance. Years later, Neil hikes to John William's hiding place, only to discover that John William has paid the ultimate price for his beliefs.

David Guterson is the author of three previous novels and a story collection, The Country Ahead of Us, The Country Behind. His debut novel, the #1 best-selling Snow Falling on Cedars, received the PEN/Faulkner Award and the American Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award. He is the author of East of the Mountains and Our Lady of the Forest.