COUGAR — For every one hundred authors who rack their brains and snap their pencils as they make doomed attempts to plot the perfect setting for their fledgling stories, there is one Jon Gosch.
Gosch, who was raised in Longview, needed only to peer eastward out the window of his childhood home in order to recognize the prospects of southwest Washington’s definitive motif that has a sneaky habit of hiding in plain sight — Mount St. Helens.
Gosch’s most recent literary creation is a novel titled “Deep Fire Rise.” Gosch’s second published book, is set in the morning shadow of Mount St. Helens back in 1980 during the months that bookended the mountain’s most famous eruption. As such, the book’s official publication date has been set for Friday, in order to coincide with the 38th anniversary of that momentous blowout.