The Wind Is Not a River

The Wind Is Not a River is a novel by the Canadian writer Brian Payton, published in 2014. It is built on a campaign of the Second World War that is much less familiar than the fighting in Europe: the Japanese occupation of two islands in the Aleutians, off the coast of Alaska.

John Easley is a journalist whose younger brother has been killed in Europe. Looking for something that will make the loss mean more than it does, he leaves Helen, his wife, and travels north to report on the fighting in the Aleutians even though the American government has suppressed the story of what is happening there.

He is accompanying a crew on a bombing run when his aircraft is shot down over the island of Attu. He survives, and finds himself in a wilderness that the book calls the birthplace of winds, where he has to fight the cold, hunger and his own remorse while staying out of the hands of the Japanese garrison. Helen, alone at home, is left to manage the disappearance of a husband the authorities will not discuss, and to reimagine what she is able to do on her own.