East of the Mountains by David Guterson (affiliate link)
David Guterson’s lyrical study of life and death in East of the Mountains offers a surprisingly simple and effective model for the rest of us to follow. His technique is nothing more or less than simply highlighting the details of whatever it is he wants to emphasize.
The entire book is flowing with fabulously detailed prose, but nowhere is this more evident than in an early description of a young woman who offers the protagonist a ride after he survives a car accident.
Guterson tells his audience that the young woman is beautiful, but had he just left it at that, the readers probably would have acknowledged the fact without ever really feeling it. Thanks to Guterson’s adept use of details, subtly scattered through the prose, we come to share the narrator’s opinion of the woman’s beauty. The narration takes the time to show intimate details, such as the way she plays with his dog, the manner in which she hands over a bottle of water, and her posture as she sits in the front seat of her van.
The girl, too, was beautiful, kneeling beside the dog in her rain gear, graceful as a ballerina. Her hair was blond, her eyes blue, and she smiled directly at Ben, holding his gaze with a poise that stirred him. “I like your glasses,” she said.
The girl’s beauty was a torment. Her wet hand moving against the dog’s throat and slowly down the length of the dog’s chest filled Ben with a hollow yearning. He turned away from it.
Guterson’s details aren’t pushy. They don’t shout the truth in the reader’s face and force him to see the woman the way Guterson wants. Aside from his initial use of “beautiful,” he never makes a point of drawing attention to how the character looks.
Her actions and the details used to describe them are mundane and most don’t even pertain to appearance. Rather, it’s the loving attention Guterson showers on her by his focus on the little things that makes readers understand her beauty in the same way the protagonist does.
