The Half-Life

Description

"Cookie Figowitz is the cook for a party of volatile fur trappers trekking through the Oregon Territory in the 1820s, desperate to find their way to the newly created Hudson Bay Company before their meager supplies run out. As he forages for food one evening with the hope of placating the increasingly restless men, Cookie stumbles over Henry Brown, a man on the run from a group of Russians looking to settle an old score. Cookie takes Henry in, hiding him from the trappers, and the two begin an unlikely friendship that will take them from the virgin territory of the West all the way to China and back again." "Tina Plank is a teenager who has been unhappily transplanted to a Pacific Northwest commune in the 1980s. The only other girl her age within five miles is Trixie Volterra, whose troubled past only adds to her allure. Thrown together by circumstance, the two become fast friends, and are soon hard at work trying to make an elaborate movie on a shoestring budget. When, in the midst of filming, two skeletons are unearthed on the property, the lives of Cookie and Henry, Tina and Trixie converge in unexpected, startling ways."--BOOK JACKET.

First Sentence

FOOTSTEPS ON THE forest floor made a noise like paper crumpling in a child's fist.

Subjects

Other Editions

• The Half Life: A NovelHardcoverBloomsbury USA2004-05-14
• The Half-LifePaperbackBloomsbury USA2005-04-14