The Greening of Ben Brown

“The greening of ben brown is an intriguing debut novel.” —Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“An english teacher at willamette university, Strelow resonates as both poet and storyteller. In creating inhabitants of a town, its central figure and a strong sense of place, he lays on description lavishly, almost breathlessly, in both broad and detailed strokes. The author lovingly invokes a particular brand of Pacific Northwest magic realism, a blend of fable, social realism, wry wisdom and irreverence that brings to mind Ken Kesey, Tom Robbins and the best elements of a low-key mystery.” —The Oregonian

“Strelow’s powerful descriptive language in The Greening of Ben Brown proves beyond a doubt that he is an author to watch in the future.” —Jackson Free Press

“The greening of ben brown is about communities, physical and emotional. It is a tale of wonders and everyday things. This is a wise book. While it might seem to be intrinsically about the Northwest, it is about universal things. Not many novels mean as much, entertain as much and stimulate as much as The Greening of Ben Brown.” —Statesman Journal

“Debut novelist Michael Strelow’s prose is wonderfully descriptive, especially in describing the natural characteristics of East Leven, and clearly demonstrates his affection for the state he’s called home for more than thirty years.” —The Absinthe Literary Review

“Michael Strelow has given Northwest readers an amazing fable for our time and place featuring Ben Brown, a utility lineman who transforms into the Green Man following an industrial accident. Eco-Hero and prophet, the Green Man heads a cast of wonderful and zany characters who fixate over sundry items from filberts to hubcaps. A timely raid on a company producing heavy metals galvanizes Strelow’s mythical East Leven as much as the Boston Tea Party rallied Boston. Fascinating, humorous, and wise, The Greening of Ben Brown deserves its place on bookshelves along with other Northwest classics.” —Craig Lesley, author of Storm Riders

“If the Green Man of medieval lore appeared in Oregon—the mystic version of Strelow’s Oregon— and if the ghost of Kesey helped keep the tale irreverent but strangely tender for place, person, and our chance, then you would hold in your hands The Greening of Ben Brown. And so you do. Let this quiet mystery take you where you need to be.” —Kim Stafford, author of The Muses Among Us and Other Pleasures of the Writer’s Craft

“With its richly cultivated and carefully tended prose, The Greening of Ben Brown is a compelling examination of community and what it means to love the land, for, as these characters teach us, there shall never be another quite like it.” —Gina Ochsner, author of The Necessary Grace to Fall