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Thursday, September 02, 2010
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| 12/28/2005 4:00:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article
Comment on this article |  | | The BOOK | ‘Cryptid: The Lost Legacy of Lewis & Clark’
By Eric Penz
Copyright 2005 and published by Universe, Lincoln NE 68512. $18.95 softcover. Available at Independent Books, Sandpiper Mall, Long Beach, WA 98631.
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Book Review: New thriller combines Big Foot
with famous sore-footed explorers
By Nancy Lloyd
Observer correspondent
Eric Penz’s new thriller, “Cryptid: The Lost Legacy of Lewis & Clark” is founded upon that expedition with which we on the Long Beach Peninsula are heartily familiar, and upon a legend with which we may be less well-acquainted.
Those who have spent time in the primordial forests of Washington’s Skamania County may know something of Sasquatch. Skamania is the county that passed legislation in 1969 making it a felony to kill a Bigfoot — $10,000 or five years — it is the county where Ape Canyon and Ape Cave were named for reported episodes in the 1920s with “Ones” leaving big footprints. It is the Washington county where the most reliable Bigfoot sightings, vocalizations, and footprints have been reported over the years.
It is also the place where a local store displayed two plaster casts of Sasquatch footprints on the front counter.
That store in North Bonneville, called the “Bigfoot Department Store,” sported an exterior paint job of disorienting pale purple, was stocked with an astonishing and extensive variety of items that “drummers” could unload nowhere else, and was more fun than any dollar store you’ve ever explored.
Therein lies the dilemma with Sasquatch; is this real?
Much evidence would suggest there is something there. American practicality responds with a fit of the giggles.
Penz’s thriller opens in 1809 at Monticello with President Thomas Jefferson depicted as in dismay as he hides one of Meriwether Lewis’s journals and some physical evidence from the expedition of the Corps of Discovery. The tale then moves to the present day and weaves together the paths of a cryptozoologist, a palentologist, a Jefferson descendent, and a Sasquatch.
As the first three are “connecting the dots,” the back of the book tells us, they, “… threaten to do more than unveil the well-guarded scientific discovery that lies at the heart of the ancient secret; they threaten to rewrite American history. That is, if they can survive a conspiracy that dates back to the Founding Fathers.”
“Cryptid” is a great beach read for a few long winter’s nights.
Eric Penz is a good storyteller at the very beginning of his writing career. He is able to quickly develop dimensional characters and evoke the surroundings all the while telling a story that rips right along. The author clearly thought enough of his thesis to do a thorough job of research and to spend enough time with his story to weave it provocatively. His intelligence and imagination serve him well in this work. Penz’s overwriting and the typos augmented by spell checker should fall away as he gains more experience.
Penz was part of the successful “Book and Breakfast” book signings recently at Independent Books in Long Beach. His book is available from the store, located in the mall adjacent to the Long Beach Pharmacy at the first light in Long Beach. The store’s winter hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., seven days a week. Its phone number is 642-8438.
And, as you think over Penz’ thesis, remember that Robert Michael Pyle spent a Guggenheim Fellowship and risked his scientific reputation in his fine 1995 field study, “Where Bigfoot Walks.” Clearly, the subject bears further objective study.
Have a good time with the book.
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