Hearthside Books & Toys

In 1946, young Claire Fejes was a painter and sculptor in New York City. She held the unconventional view that her career was as important as her husband’s. But the custom was “whither thou goest, I will go,” so Claire went—to Fairbanks, last stop on the Alaska Railroad, in the heart of the immense northern territory, where Joe Fejes intended to mine for gold. In her refreshingly candid memoir, Fejes tells of a remote outpost where a hardy breed of Alaskans overcomes loneliness and of her own soul-aching artistic and cultural isolation. She describes characters such as Eva McGown, a one-woman social-service agency who wears powerful violet perfume and speaks with a sweet Irish brogue; and Fabian Carey, a trapper who loves the wilderness as fervently as he does opera, literature, and art. Like her vivid paintings, the author portrays the men and women for whom survival and self-sufficiency is foremost in post-war Alaska.