I don’t think this was the case. My prime reason for the maneuvering in Oregon, and it is said often in the book, was to stop field burning. It’s the reason I started writing this book. I felt I didn’t want anyone else to suffer what we were forced to experience. I don’t have that reason now. If Oregonians, for their own reasons, want to burn down the barn, that’s their business. As I say at the end of the book, the deaths of loved ones are sometimes meant to be. Maybe it’s some kind of lesson to all of us not to hold onto life so ferociously, bitterly. It’s been so for me.
Next year, I will be seventy. Soon enough I’ll find out if Bert, Kate, Mia, and Dayiel will be available to me. There’s no way of knowing except to die.
As to the others in the book, Mona Flores earned her partnership in the firm, divorced her husband, sold her house, started a legal practice with a good friend, and found a new man. I’m happy for her.
We hope to visit with our friends the Wilsons this summer. They’re still living in Portland.
So life goes on. It does for all of us, longer than most of us permit ourselves to believe.
WILLIAM WHARTON,
9 May 1994, Port Marly
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
WILLIAM WHARTON (1925–2008) is the pen name of a painter who launched a writing career after the age of 50, winning a National Book Award for his first novel, Birdy, in 1978. He went on to publish seven more novels (Dad, A Midnight Clear, Scumbler, Pride, Tidings, Franky Furbo, and Last Lovers) and two memoirs (Ever After and Houseboat on the Seine).
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PRAISE
Praise for Ever After: A Father’s True Story
“William Wharton writes with the skills of a born storyteller … Ever After reads like a grippingly dramatic novel and its blend of sorrow and a healing anger has a bracingly cathartic effect.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“While Wharton is an accomplished storyteller, this is not a story. This is not a novel, not even a memoir, this is a sort of prose documentary.... I was not aware of having developed any terrific attachment to Kate during the first five chapters. She seemed a decent, attractive young woman. Not Mother Teresa or Marilyn Monroe. But when Wharton hears she’s dead, I burst into tears....I don’t know how it happened, but this ordinary woman had become as real to me as most anything else in my ordinary life.”
—Benjamin Cheever, Los Angeles Times Book Review
“In Ever After, Wharton applies the same literary techniques that made his novels so emotionally compelling to tell a powerful story of devastating loss and spiritual healing.... No happy endings here, but two spiritual epiphanies give Wharton and readers a new understanding of life and whatever lies beyond death. Highly recommended.”
—Library Journal
“The central story is not of lives lost but of life reclaimed. It is, at its deepest, darkest level, the story of one man’s transformation in the face of acute bereavement.... His testimony, this book itself, is too passionate, brave and moving not to count as a victory, however hard won.”
—Julia Glass, Chicago Tribune
“Wharton’s tone is modest and without sentiment. A portrait emerges of a strong, informed, competent hero who is also a father in unspeakable pain. The memoir ends on a hopeful note: Five years after the tragedy, Wharton and his wife feel a spiritual connection to Kate through an experience they share.”
—Richmond Times-Dispatch
ALSO BY WILLIAM WHARTON
FICTION
Birdy
Dad*
Franky Furbo
Last Lovers
A Midnight Clear*
Pride*
Scumbler*
Tidings
NONFICTION
Ever After*
Houseboat on the Seine*
* Published by Newmarket Press
COPYRIGHT
First Newmarket Paperback Edition 2009
ISBN: 978-1-55704-843-1
EPub Edition © JANUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780062278340
Version 05312013
First Newmarket Hardcover Edition 1995
Copyright ©1995 by William Wharton.
Published in Great Britain by Granta Books under the title Wrongful Deaths.
This book is published in the United States of America.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
[Wrongful deaths]
Ever After: a father’s true story / William Wharton.
p. cm.
Originally published : Wrongful deaths. London: Granta Books. 1994.
ISBN 1-55704 –223-3
1. Wharton, William – Trials, litigation, etc. 2.Oregon – Trials, litigation, etc.
3. Wrongful deaths – Oregon. 4. Traffic accidents – Oregon. 5. Grass seed industry – Oregon. 6. Burning of land – Oregon. I. Title.
KF228.W425W47 1995
346.7303’23 – DC20
[347.306323]
94-45326
CIP
Quantity Purchases
Companies, professional groups, clubs, and other organizations may qualify for special terms when ordering quantities of this title. For information, contact Special Sales, Newmarket Press, 18 East 48th Street, New York, New York 10017; call (212) 832-3575 ext. 19 or 1-800-669-3903; fax (212) 832-3629; or email
[email protected].
Manufactured in the United States of America
www.newmarketpress.com
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William Wharton, Ever After: A Father's True Story
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