The 2019 Newport Reads selection is Whiskey When We're Dry, by John Larison

In the spring of 1885, seventeen-year-old Jessilyn Harney finds herself orphaned and alone on her family's homestead. Desperate to fend off starvation and predatory neighbors, she cuts off her hair, binds her chest, saddles her beloved mare, and sets off across the mountains to find her outlaw brother Noah and bring him home. A talented sharpshooter herself, Jess's quest lands her in the employ of the territory's violent, capricious Governor, whose militia is also hunting Noah--dead or alive.

Wrestling with her brother's outlaw identity, and haunted by questions about her own, Jess must outmaneuver those who underestimate her, ultimately rising to become a hero in her own right.

Told in Jess's wholly original and unforgettable voice, Whiskey When We're Dry is a stunning achievement, an epic as expansive as America itself--and a reckoning with the myths that are entwined with our history.

Author Event

April 11, 2019 at 7:00 p.m.
Newport Performing Arts Center

John Larison was born in 1979 in Oregon. The son of National Geographic filmmakers, much of his childhood was spent traveling, often staying in remote tropical or mountainous regions. He has a Master's of Education from the University of Oregon and a Master's of Fine Arts from Oregon State University.

Larison lives with his family in Oregon’s Coast Range mountains, where he is at work on his next novel. 

Copies of the Whiskey When We're Dry will be available for purchase and signing. This program is sponsored by the Newport Public Library Foundation, with support from the Sylvia Beach Hotel.

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