FARMINGTON—A man and his daughter are the last two people on earth in an Edenic future.  They are living close to the land and the father teaches his daughter how to survive and be one with nature. When he dies, it is up to the girl to use that knowledge to find her way back home and she finds herself in the company of a bear who leads her through the wilderness.

“The Bear,” a novel by Andrew Krivak is the book the Davis County Library selected to read as a community as part of a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Big Read grant they received. Krivak will give a special presentation on his book at the Headquarters, Farmington Library,  Thursday, April 18 at 6:30 p.m. 

“It’s about the communication between human and nature,” said Krivak. “Nature is a much bigger storyteller than humans ever were. Humans are hubris, they think they’re going to be here forever.”

The Bear began as a story he used to tell his sons, Krivak said. “It was about a bear who helped my father and me find our dog when I was a boy and the dog was lost in the woods. As my sons got older, the story evolved from a quick bedtime vignette to a tale in which the boy of the story became much more attached to the bear. Then my daughter was born and the boy became a girl.”

Krivak lives with his family in Somerville, Massachusetts and Jaffrey, New Hampshire in the southwest corner of the Mount Monadnock region. “A great deal of the inspiration for the environment in The Bear, and the struggle within nature that it describes, came to me as a result of watching nature in those New Hampshire woods,” he said. “It’s not the Rockies, but it’s beautiful.”

The landscape in The Bear is quite beautiful and Edenic, said Krivak. “I did that on purpose. I like to write about nature and make nature the ultimate character.”

Krivak said he has always had an interest in literature. “I read books as a kid and my grandmother was from Slovakia. She would tell me stories from where she came from. She was a great storyteller. That was a connection for me. I could imagine it through her eyes.”

In addition to being the NEA Big Read selection, The Bear is the Mountain Book Competition Winner, Massachusetts Book Awards Winner, Chautauqua Prize Finalist, Joyce Carol Oates Prize Longlist and Julia Ward Howe Book Award Finalist.

“I’ve been lucky to be able to publish,” said Krivak. “Not everyone is that lucky.”

 It’s been a lot of fun going to other places, to present, he said. “Not everybody asks the writer to come. I like in person events to connect with the people that read my novel. That’s a special thing for a writer. The reason I write is because I love to tell stories.”

The Headquarters, Farmington library is located at 133 S. Main Street.