On Heaven's Hill

(Paperback)

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Description

On Heaven's Hill

has topical themes of climate change and environmental/animal conservation at odds with government and corporate interest, and ultimately is also a stirring and emotional story of a community coming together.

Author Kim Heacox has won the National Outdoor Book Award twice, for The Only Kayak, a memoir, and Jimmy Bluefeather, a novel.

Jimmy Bluefeather

is a perennial backlist bestseller for Alaska Northwest Books, with combined sales of over 10,000 copies for the original hardcover, paperback, and reissued hardcover editions.

Heacox currently writes opinion-editorials for The Guardian on the climate crisis, biodiversity, and threats to US public lands. He has written books of essays and photography, history, memoir, fiction, and biographies.

On Heaven's Hill

is a great pick for book clubs (discussion questions will be available), and, with one of the three perspectives in the voice of 11-year-old Kes, strong crossover appeal for ages 12+.

Reviews

Kim Heacox is the bard of Alaska, drawing stories from the power and music of the land itself. His new book, On Heavens Hill, is truly a novel to match Alaskas mountains. The braided plot runs fast. The characters are broken and shining, as if eroded to their cores. The language calls out with rain-carved clarity. And the truth that the novel tells is both eternal and seismic: a girl, a wounded vet, and a hungry wolf all come to know that in our struggle to heal the reeling world, we may find a chance, maybe a last chance, to heal ourselves. Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Earths Wild Music

Kim Heacox knows Alaskathe wilderness, the animals, the communities. He has found a way to dramatize the conflicts tearing at us, while reminding us of the power of the land to heal. And he has found a bold way to give wolves a voice in the storywhile toying with that familiar Chekhovian dictum: dont display a grenade launcher in act one unless you intend to blow up something in act three. Tom Kizzia, author of Cold Mountain Path and Pilgrims Wilderness

Few writers know Alaskas wildlands and human landscapes like Kim Heacox. In this remarkable novel, humans and wild things circle each other until they collide in gripping and inspirational ways. Whether you seek stirring insights, entertaining prose, or both, On Heavens Hill will capture your days and dreams to the last page. This is Heacoxs finest work. Daniel Henry, Pushcart Prize winner and author of Across the Shamans River: John Muir, the Tlingit Stronghold, and the Opening of the North

When an intrepid wolf, a plucky twelve-year-old girl, and a former trapper must face a rapidly changing ecosystem, the more-than-human world offers powerful advice: listen closely, expand your range, and find power in the pack. Kim Heacox writes with fierce love and lucid clarity about Southeast Alaska, a place where the line between human and nature has, thankfully, nearly faded. On Heavens Hill is the kind of story the planet needs right now.Kimi Eisele, author of The Lightest Object in the Universe

A dazzling tale of a young girl, a desperate father, and a silver wolf caught in the middle of a battle between an Alaskan band of war veterans and corrupt land developers. Another compelling read from the author of Jimmy Bluefeather and The Only Kayak.Lynne M. Spreen, author of Dakota Blues and We Did This Once Before

"The novels painterly prose evokes Alaska as a place of great beauty and scarcity...a well-plotted tale of frontier utopianism thatshould appeal to nature lovers. Kirkus

Praise for Jimmy Bluefeather:

Part quest, part rebirth, Heacox's debut novel spins a story of Alaska's Tlingit people and the land, an old man dying, and a young man learning to live.Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Heacox does a superb job of transcending his characters unique geography to create a heartwarming, all-American story.Booklist

A splendid, unique gem of a novel.Library Journal (starred review)

"This is a book that could only have been written by someone who has paid very close and very loving attention to the natural and human communitiesthe packs and families, and the individuals that make them up. That intimate and tender observation produces a magnificent book, full of reality and hope and wild joy.Bill McKibben, American environmentalist and founder of350.org

Author Bio

Kim Heacox is best known for his memoir The Only Kayak and his novel Jimmy Bluefeather, both winners of the National Outdoor Book Award, and for his opinion pieces in The Guardian, where he writes in celebration and defense of the natural world, mostly on the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and threats to US public lands. His book of essays and photographs, In Denali, won the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award. A keen musician and photographer, and former ranger with the US National Park Service, he lives on eighteen acres in Gustavus, Alaska, next to Glacier Bay National Park, with his wife Melanie, two sea kayaks, a Martin guitar, and forty-some chestnut-baked chickadees. Learn more at www.kimheacox.com.