The islanders are traditionally pretty insular, which might explain why the island is such a fertile breeding ground for bigotry and prejudice. Hmm, we see that cedar has already been mentioned as one of the truly positive and beautiful aspects of the scenery we'll have to keep that in mind and head back to the ' Symbols' section to think about that some more.

The island homes were damp and moss covered and lay in solitary fields and vales of alfalfa, feed corn, and strawberries' (1.10). Enormous hills, soft green with cedars, rose and fell in every direction. Of course, the island has its pretty points as well: 'San Piedro had too a brand of verdant beauty that inclined its residents toward the poetical. Sounds… er, delightful? At least Guterson is getting us amply prepared for a wet, depressing ride. On winter evenings it roared in sheets against the pavements and made Amity Harbor invisible' (1.9). As we've already discussed elsewhere (see ' Symbols'), weather is kind of a big deal in this novel, symbolically and plot-wise, and we definitely get that sense early on in Guterson's descriptions of the landscape: 'Rain, the spirit of the place, patiently beat down everything man-made. San Piedro is described as 'an island of five thousand damp souls' (1.7), and Amity Harbor as 'an eccentric, rainy, wind-beaten sea village, downtrodden and mildewed' (1.9). Set in 1954, almost a decade after the end of World War II, the story takes place on the fictional island of San Piedro in Washington state, whose only town is Amity Harbor.

Amity Harbor, San Piedro Island (fictional), Washington State

Snow on cedars by david guterson