Winner, National Outdoor Book Award
"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)
"A splendid, unique gem of a novel."
—Library Journal (starred review)
"Heacox does a superb job of transcending his characters’ unique geography to create a heartwarming, all-American story."
—Booklist
"What makes this story so appealing is the character Old Keb. He is as finely wrought and memorable as any character in contemporary literature and energizes the tale with a humor and warmth that will keep you reading well into the night."
—National Outdoor Book Awards
Old Keb Wisting is somewhere around ninety-five years old (he lost count awhile ago) and in constant pain and thinks he wants to die. He also thinks he thinks too much. Part Norwegian and part Tlingit Native (“with some Filipino and Portuguese thrown in”), he’s the last living canoe carver in the village of Jinkaat, in Southeast Alaska.
When his grandson, James, a promising basketball player, ruins his leg in a logging accident and tells his grandpa that he has nothing left to live for, Old Keb comes alive and finishes his last canoe, with help from his grandson. Together (with a few friends and a crazy but likeable dog named Steve) they embark on a great canoe journey. Suddenly all of Old Keb’s senses come into play, so clever and wise in how he reads the currents, tides, and storms. Nobody can find him. He and the others paddle deep into wild Alaska, but mostly into the human heart, in a story of adventure, love, and reconciliation. With its rogue’s gallery of colorful, endearing, small-town characters, this book stands as a wonderful blend of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and John Nichols’s The Milagro Beanfield War, with dashes of John Steinbeck thrown in.
"Jimmy Bluefeather, a new novel by Kim Heacox, is a masterful work of fiction. It fits snugly in the spaces between Kim's previous books, much as the bones of his main character, Old Keb, fit the wood of his cane, "the wilderness between his fingers." That line comes from the third paragraph of this engaging book. I stopped and read the first five paragraphs several times before turning the page. I wanted to savor the craft of Kim's writing like swirling a fine wine in the glass before sipping. I was hooked. I liked Keb from page one, and cared about what might happen to him. This is very important, because at his core Kim Heacox is an activist, a disruptive radical on a mission to save the world. "Imagine ... it isn't hard to do." Except that it is, but Kim makes it less hard through the gracefulness of his writing and the quirky likability of his characters. With the wry portraits in Jimmy Bluefeather, Kim captures the essence of a small town in Southeast Alaska with the gentle fondness and keen accuracy of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon. Keb's inner monologue says at one point: "To tell a story was no small thing; you had to have both permission and authority." Kim has clearly acquired both through long years of close and loving observation. Activism is present on every page. "Words are tools too," in this case well used in the service of Kim's passion for nature. Almost before we know it, we are rooting for Keb and the others to get back to the inner place where they once belonged. It is a wild and wonderful magical mystery tour, with just a hint of mysticism and a healthy dose of morality. Like its opening paragraphs, Jimmy Bluefeather is a book to be savored." -Bob Osborne, Northern Passages
