There's something immensely satisfying about a successful first novel. Reading David Guterson's 1994 book Snow Falling On Cedars was like finding a patch of virgin forest: land untouched by humans, a new talent full of limitless literary potential. Guterson's book became a hugely popular bestseller, and that hidden forest has since been explored by thousands, but the book remains a superb portrait of the Pacific Northwest and those who populate it. For that reason, Guterson's new East Of The Mountains can't surmount the sophomore slump. Though his prose remains highly readable and almost maddeningly evocative, East Of The Mountains is hindered by a touching but trite New Age plight and less-than-compelling characters. Retired doctor Ben Givens is a septuagenarian widower who is diagnosed with terminal colon cancer. Rather than await a protracted and painful death, he decides to set off on one last hunting trip to end in a suicide. Or so he hopes, as mere hours into his soul-searching voyage, he crashes his car and (ironically enough) barely escapes with his life and his valued hunting dogs. As always happens in situations such as these, he encounters several colorful strangers, each of whom dispenses various degrees of wisdom that stimulate Givens' memories. One drifter even gives him some medicinal marijuana, which prompts Givens to vividly ruminate on his past. Wait a minute: Hiking in the mountains, one last hunt, man versus nature, drug-induced flashbacks—is this some sort of hippie novel? In many ways, East Of The Mountains appears to be a variation on the classic '60s find-yourself motif, drenched in late-'90s morbidity with a hint of Hemingway machismo and Cormac McCarthy mysticism thrown in for good measure. But the affluent, cultured Givens is a poor protagonist for such a quest, and his limited travels seem less the exciting adventures of an explorer and mountain climber discovering his inner being than a moneyed yuppie expedition. Guterson's obsession with authentic details consequently comes off as somewhat gratuitous, as no amount of vivid description can make up for East Of The Mountains' familiar self-help philosophy and second-hand picaresque style.