Skip to main content

Features

David Guterson, author of Evelyn in Transit

Radically open-minded, formidably strong, and unusually clear-eyed about herself and others, Evelyn Bednarz has always been a misfit. She's easily bored, unsuited to life at school, asks odd questions about faith and time, and sees through conventions that others take for granted. Seeking to be true to herself, she hitchhikes across the American West taking odd jobs. In distant Tibet, another life unfolds as remote from Evelyn’s as can be: the life of a boy named Tsering, raised as a Buddhist monk in the mountains of Tibet, who eventually becomes a high lama. And yet, their lives are strangely linked --- as Evelyn discovers when a trio of Buddhist lamas show up at her door to announce that her five-year-old son, Cliff, is the seventh reincarnation of the illustrious Norbu Rinpoche, recently deceased. The lamas’ visit sets off a family crisis and a media firestorm over Cliff’s future.