“A compelling cast... An intriguing novel about a little-known episode in American history... Includes some wonderfully evocative writing about how globally significant events can affect the lives of everyday people.” ~ Steve Olson, author of The Apocalypse Factory: Plutonium and the Making of the Atomic Age When newcomers arrive with urgent messages , the annual Hanford-White Bluffs Settlers' Reunion on the mid-Columbia River turns out to be more exciting than usual. The reunions are a time of nostalgic reminiscing for the families who were evicted to make way for the Hanford Atomic Plant in 1943. Now much will disrupt the agenda. The settlers take their usual bus tour to view the ruins of their old town and farms in the closed area around the ghostly defunct Plant. But on the bus this time is a veteran wounded in Middle East wars who is shocked to view the remains of his family's holdings in what had been acres of fruit trees. Two anthropologists expecting peaceful research take notes on the vet's anger and revelations from a woman whose own family suffered the bombing of Nagasaki. And now the news of the Plant's stored radioactive waste seeping to the river adds to the debates on evictions and nuclear bombs. The tour bus driver, a young Wanapum Indian from upriver, is frustrated over his role in managing the shrinking salmon runs and worries about his children’s future. When he finds his grandfather helping the vet in the Plant's forbidden area, he joins in the growing protests. More arrive to jump in the crosscurrents: furious anti-government ranchers, a band of college students, and a Siberian shaman intent on blessing the endangered river. An unlikely romance that blossoms adds another layer of surprise. Some ghosts are laid to rest, while others yet wander, unpacified. Upstaged are the reunion's stories of childhood on the Columbia. What will be the outcome for this odd collection of protestors and healers? Will they be hauled off to jail? Find new ways to live? Will they take more dramatic action to make their voices heard? "This is an intriguing novel about a little-known episode in American history -- the production of plutonium at the Hanford nuclear reservation in eastern Washington State. The author brings together a compelling cast of characters in an amazing setting -- the arid Columbia River basin in the rain shadow of the Cascade Mountains. The characters are driven by their passions rather than by a historically informed understanding of what happened at Hanford, but the emotional response is an important part of the story, and the history is available elsewhere. Includes some wonderfully evocative writing about how globally significant events can affect the lives of everyday people." ~ Steve Olson , author of The Apocalypse Factory: Plutonium and the Making of the Atomic Age "Given the growing global threat of climate change, the Trump administration's undercutting of conservation and environmental protection laws, promotion of the fossil fuel and nuclear power industries, Storytellers at the Columbia River by Nancy Mendenhall (her debut as a novelist) is more than a simple work of entertaining and engaging fiction, it is a clarion call for the support of Native American rights with respect to the land and the waters and the wildlife and people that depend upon them. Especially and unreservedly recommended for community and college/university library Regional American Literature, Shamanism, and Native American Literature collections." ~ Midwest Book Review "Inspiring. . . fascinating. . . This is a much larger story of what could happen anywhere, told in such a grounded, knowledgeable and appealing way that the readers' hearts are won, and perhaps their political convictions too. A real gem." ~ Dr. Evelyn Pinkerton , professor emeritus, Fraser Univ., B.C. " Storytellers at the Columbia River draws from the displacement of different communities along the Columbia River. The stories reflect how these communities grapple with the trauma of losing their homes... through it all, Mendenhall makes important connections between very different points of view. There are ruminations about commodities and committees, energy, environment, education, activism and government. Is this book overlong? Perhaps so. But that may be fitting, given the vast capacity of the river itself." ~ Bookmonger ( Our Coast Magazine ) "Mendenhall tells a rich and complicated story--in reality many stories--cautionary tales of violence done to people and the environment: families evicted from their farms and orchards in order to build the Hanford, Washington nuclear facility; the construction of huge Columbia River dams that prevent salmon from reaching their spawning grounds; Indigenous people dispossessed of their ancestral land and food sources; the horror of Nagasaki; the threat of nuclear waste leaking from the Hanford plant and contaminating the river. These stories, told through th