Many authors have undertaken to retell this ancient story. It also seems (surprise number three, unless you read the back cover of the book) to be a retelling of the classic fairy tale, East of the Sun and West of the Moon – which I think is based, in turn, on the myth of Cupid and Psyche. So when a talking polar bear shows up and offers to restore the family’s falling fortunes, if only Rose will come away with it, it seems like fate. A lie, a guilty secret, a dark prophecy, and a poisonous superstition haunt the early childhood of Ebba Rose.
And so is the name of its heroine, the youngest child born to a family in which each person’s given name, character, and destiny is meant to reflect the direction they were facing at the moment they were born. The second surprise comes early in the book, when you realize that what you guessed from the cover illustration was actually correct the book’s title is a lie. From this visual cue, you would rather expect the book to be titled North. The first surprise about East is the cover, which depicts a beautiful but shockingly underdressed young woman walking through the snow, alongside a polar bear. So the first thing I have to say about East is that it made up my mind: I will be reading those other titles by Pattou, and soon. I was trying to decide whether to read a series of books by Edith Pattou, including Hero’s Song and Fire Arrow, when I came upon this stand-alone novel and decided to read it first. Still, “I've always said, ‘If they ever make a movie of ‘East,' I'm going to get a compass rose tattoo,'” she says. An independent filmmaker has pursued the possibility, but Pattou knows how complicated such ventures can be. Then she revisited “East,” and, “I got this real thunderbolt-what if the Troll Queen hadn't actually died? She would be really, really angry and want revenge.” She also backtracked Rose to her early 20s: “She's still a bit of a wild child … still taking risks but determined to get through them and back to her baby and husband.” The resulting novel, entitled “West,” was released in October 2018.įans also ask whether “East” has any chance of becoming a movie.
Some were heartbreaking, and I realized that some of these women had been through hard times, and somehow ‘East' had helped them.” The letter-writers begged for a sequel, but Pattou saw the book as a standalone, neatly tied up at the end with Rose's marriage and children. And then, as the letters continued to arrive, “I became undone. “My thought was, this is awesome,” says Pattou.
Several fervent fans had tattoos of the compass rose, a recurrent symbol in the book. They told her that “East” had been their favorite book-they read it every year, traveled with it and took it with them to college. During this period, she also started receiving letters from 20-somethings who had read “East” as young teens.
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