Booklife Review

Off the farthest Northwest corner of the Olympic Peninsula, an infant floating on the Pacific in an empty petroleum barrel is discovered by a lone lumberjack and given the fitting name Petr. So begins Dunn’s multi-voiced, magic-touched, folklore-minded novel celebrating the peninsula and its people. Petr grows up considering every sound of the forest “a conversation with the animals, the plants, and even the stones,” developing a deep feeling for nature and Native American culture while also discovering the human world through a transistor radio. After his adoptive father dies with ax in hand, Petr travels, finding himself working at a shake mill, and going to college at Black Hills Technical School, walking the line between dream and reality. His grand project: his pirate radio broadcasts of his conversations with the people (and frog choruses) of the Peninsula.

Radio Free Olympia blends local history, nature writing, indigenous storytelling, disquisitions on topics like free will, and a love for tall tales into a richly woven narrative filled with (mis)adventures and surprising observations from a variety of voices, such as Raven, a follower of Petr with little respect for the fourth wall, or arresting bursts of freeform poetry from Baie detailing the creation of “...a wayward / women’s roadhouse, / a monastery for / wildsisters.” When Petr’s nomadic soul meets Baie’s need for home, Dunn leaves it to readers to wonder whether it’s fate, coincidence, or shared revelation.

The novel’s blending of the ordinary and the extraordinary, the mundane and magical, is ambitious, playful, and at times challenging, as in the final chapter, when all speakers converge instead of enjoying their own individual chapters. Despite this, though, whether it’s “I, Raven, in the air or White Otter in the water or Petr in the pulse or Baie in the spirit..." all the roads taken by Dunn and his people lead together to a common point, one that feels, for all the novel’s audacity and the threat of natural disaster, like life itself.

Takeaway: Four unique souls’ beautifully penned adventures in Olympic Peninsula.

Comparable Titles: Donald Harington, Richard Brautigan.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A