Alaska sets the scene for reporter's first novel

"A Hole in the Heart"

By Christopher Marquis

St. Martin's Press, 341 pages, $24.95

By STEVE KADEL/Frontiersman reporter

Lots of reporters bang away on a novel in their spare time, telling themselves its publication will light up the sky and provide escape from the treadmill of daily journalism. Usually the novels stay unpublished.

But Christopher Marquis, a general assignment reporter in the New York Times' Washington bureau, has pulled it off.

His recently released book, "A Hole in the Heart," is the work of someone likely to become a fixture on the landscape of American fiction.

"Book" magazine has tabbed Marquis as one of "Ten to watch in 2003."

fter finishing the novel, it's clear the praise is deserved.

Marquis writes with grace and understanding about love, the loss of love, and the universal human search for meaning in day-to-day life. His characters are well drawn, and their lives unfold in a compelling way that is a welcome change from much of today's formula fiction.

The first half of the book is set in a small Alaska fishing village. Protagonist Bean Jessup works the slime line and tries to cope with the recent death of her husband, Mick, on Mount McKinley.

Inevitably, there are passages where Marquis -- who himself spent a summer sliming -- assesses Alaskans' peculiar attitudes.

"Grousing about fishing, Mick had told Bean, was part of a larger Alaskan outlook. It involved taxes (too high), the general state of society (hopeless), drugs (bad, except for pot and booze), environmentalists (usually a pain in the ass), and breaches in their splendid isolation (why couldn't everyone just leave them alone?).

"'So, basically, everybody hates the government?' Bean had asked.

"'Well, they hate the Feds more than the state,' Mick told her. 'And they don't hate either one if they work for them, which is plenty of people. And the state starts to look okay when everybody gets their oil-kickback check. But then it goes into the doghouse when it overregulates the salmon catch. Got it?'"

Mick's elderly mother, Hanna, joins Bean in Alaska and they form an uneasy alliance based on shared grief. When the rain and small-town sameness become too smothering, they leave together for San Francisco, where Bean grew up.

The rest of the story traces their struggles and occasional small victories en route to a satisfying yet realistic ending.

Marquis may not opt out of journalism to pursue fiction full time.

However, those who've read "A Hole in the Heart" will definitely want more.