{"product_id":"epitaph-for-ophir-a-novel-about-an-alaskan-mining-town-9781598245257","title":"Epitaph for Ophir - A Novel about an Alaskan Mining Town","description":"Gold drew stampeders to Alaska's Innoko river region in 1906, when the town of Ophir was founded. More than 40 years later, the unchanging, government-mandated price for gold was strangling the town and its mining operations. Two young men, trying to recapture a dying way of life, spend a cold but entertaining winter in a remote cabin with an old timer while, in the town, a boatload of liquor contributes to odd goings-on. A gunfight with no shots fired, a wrestling match where a woman defeats a man and the initiation of a 16-year-old boy into the brotherhood of the north help break the monotony. Community events take place in a roadhouse and two bars, where domestic disputes become public and where, on one night, a woman, squatting over a spittoon to avoid a 60-below outhouse, demanded to know if goggle-eyed spectators never saw a lady pee before? A Christmas party for the town's eight children is disrupted by a bungled knifing and, later, three of the children die in a fire when they are locked in while their parents visit a bar. The story is fiction, but Ophir and its troubles both were real. Ophir is gone, wiped out in a fire, but still appears on most maps. A few mines still operate.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"E-Booktime, LLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50474033021202,"sku":"9781598245257","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_26e56415-584e-4400-a054-c571652e52b7.jpg?v=1730211448","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/epitaph-for-ophir-a-novel-about-an-alaskan-mining-town-9781598245257","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}