To die, he thought, was to escape passion's grasp, but that was the last thing he wanted. Instead he wished to be seized by passion and pinioned, held in its palm forever—he could not imagine any other existence as embracing any real happiness.

Work
Guterson is best known as the author of Snow Falling on Cedars (1994) recipient of the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award. Currently he lives on Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound and is a co-founder of Field's End an organization for writers. The film was directed by Scott Hicks and starred Ethan Hawke James Cromwell Sam Shepherd and Max von Sydow and went on to receive an Academy Award nomination for cinematography.

David Guterson (pron.