Rough House by Tina Ontiveros is excellent. Excellent. I don’t say it lightly when I say that I think she is like a female Raymond Carver–Carver, a magnificent writer, who, in my mind, so perfectly captured the unique culture of the Northwest, the logging, the mill towns, and the landscapes (portrayed unromantically, but true). In fact, Ontiveros has lived in some of the exact same towns as Carver!

Carver died decades ago, and the Northwest of the ’80s, ’90s, and today deserve their own new depictions. Ontiveros does just that. The author writes about her troubled childhood and geniusly pairs the horrific abuse with the love in that unique way that it is so often packaged together in families.

Because I am so deeply rooted in the Northwest, having grown up here myself, being a part of a larger family that has lived here since the time of the Oregon trail, and living in a family whose income came from logging, mill work and the like, Ontiveros’s novel was so very familiar to me. I loved how she captured the culture, the strong sense of place, even the language.

I am stunned by this work.