The Half-Life
The Half Life
Cookie Figowitz is the cook for a party of volatile fur trappers trekking
through the Oregon Territory in the 1820s, desperate to find their way to
the newly created Hudson Bay Company before their meager supplies run out.
As he forages for food one evening with the hopes of placating the
increasingly restless men, Cookie stumbles over Henry Brown, a man on the
run from violent Russians looking to settle an old score. Cookie takes
Henry in, hiding him from the trappers, and the two begin an unlikely
friendship that will take them from the virgin territory of the West all
the way to China and back again.
Tina Plank is a teenager who has been unhappily transplanted to a Pacific Northwest commune in the 1980s. The only other girl her age within five miles is Trixie Volterra, whose troubled past only adds to her allure. Thrown together by circumstance, the two become fast friends, and are soon hard at work trying to make an elaborate movie on a shoestring budget. When, in the midst of filming, two skeletons are unearthed on the property, the lives of Cookie and Henry, Tina and Trixie converge in unexpected, startling ways.
The Half-Life, with extraordinary power and grace, reveals the pleasures and heartaches that bind us to one another.
Jonathan Raymond was born in the Bay Area, grew up in Portland, and attended Swarthmore College. He received his MFA from New School University in New York City. He has been the editor of Plazm magazine since 1998 (issue 18). He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. The Half-Life is his first book.