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New Novel Explores The Appeal Of The Northwoods

rebecca-rasmussen.com/

For many of us, the northwoods are a place to get away for a while, and maybe recharge before returning to the rat race of city life.

For the characters in Wisconsin-native Rebecca Rasmussen’s new novel, the northwoods are part and parcel of their life. Evergreen tells the story of three generations who are connected to a remote community of sorts in northern Minnesota. 

As the book opens, Eveline moves to the wilderness with her husband, Emil. But the two are separated shortly after their son is born. The next forty years are defined by love and separation in many incarnations, and the book explores when it’s right to hold onto things and people, and when to let go.

When Rebecca Rasmussen was back in Wisconsin over the summer, she spoke with Lake Effect's Mitch Teich.

"If you're good, good things should happen to you, but they don't, so how do you cope with that? That sense of survival that can get a little scrappy at times," Rasmussen says. "But it's that heart, like on the cover of the book...that broken heart, for me it's not broken...but that's the sense of it...this cover does put out the heart of the book. At the risk of being sentimental, I always hope [these characters] will really live long in the reader's mind."

Audrey is a WUWM host and producer for Lake Effect.