When John Hockenberry was a young reporter working for National Public Radio, he found himself on the front porch of a man named Joe, asking about the time he’d spent working on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in the state of Washington.

Sunday, June 17, 2001

When John Hockenberry was a young reporter working for National Public Radio, he found himself on the front porch of a man named Joe, asking about the time he’d spent working on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in the state of Washington.

&uot;You get paid to do this?&uot; the man asked Hockenberry. &uot;What gives you the impression you know what’s going on around here?&uot;

&uot;He didn’t say it in an angry way. He said it in a spooky way,&uot; Hockenberry recalled.

Then Joe began to tell him the story of Celilo Falls on the Columbia River, where all the Indian tribes would gather in the spring to fish the Chinook runs.

&uot;How long has this been happening?&uot; Hockenberry asked him, only to learn that it had been going on for as long as anyone could remember, or about 10,000 years.

Later, Hockenberry would follow the man’s directions to the falls precisely, and everything was just as he had told him, until he looked out to where the waterfall should be.

&uot;I saw the glassy expanse of a flat river, silenced by a dam built in 1957,&uot; he said. &uot;I saw no waterfall of any kind, but I knew under all that water, it was still there, but silenced by another history.&uot;

Hockenberry thought maybe someday he’d use the topic for a documentary, but instead, the correspondent for Dateline NBC has used it as the basis for a novel, &uot;A River Out of Eden.&uot;

&uot;I never thought I’d do this,&uot; the author admitted.

Hockenberry talked about his book, read some favorite selections from it, and signed copies Thursday evening at Albert Lea High School. The event was sponsored by the Friends of the Albert Lea Public Library, the Constant Reader, and Albert Lea Community Education.

The son of Nancy and Jack Hockenberry of Albert Lea, he’s also the author of &uot;Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs and Declarations of Independence,&uot; his memoir of life as a foreign correspondent.

He said the first book was a purging of stories he experienced personally. &uot;A River Out of Eden&uot; is what he considers &uot;a fitting ending to the story he (Joe) told me.&uot;

&uot;It’s about history and how it’s alive and untold, and about the 20th century consequences to the choice our country made in becoming an industrialized nation,&uot; Hockenberry said.

&uot;Writing fiction allowed me to portray seeing what wasn’t there anymore in someone’s eyes,&uot; he said.

The book’s main character is Francine Smoholla, who occupies a precarious position. As a U.S. government marine biologist, she is fighting to save salmon threatened by dams that supply Washington’s hydroelectric power. But as a Chinook Indian, she finds herself torn between the colliding forces of technology and environmentalism. She has seen the catastrophic effects the dams have had on her tribe’s ancestral lands, livelihood and traditional ways of life.

When power company workers and forest service employees start turning up dead with elaborate native harpoons in their backs, suspicion quickly falls on the Chinook. Wondering just how far her tribe will go to protect their community, Francine quietly begins her own investigation.

He said the issues addressed in the book are relevant now, given California’s power shortage and the environmental tensions of the Pacific Northwest. There’s also a Timothy McVeigh-type character, who went west and saw demons in the government.

Hockenberry said he knows little about Joe, except he died 12 or 13 years ago. &uot;But I never forgot him. I often wonder what Joe would think of this book. He’s still alive to me.&uot;

The author told of a book signing earlier this year in the Pacific Northwest, and noticing there a woman who never cracked a smile while he talked. When it came time for questions, she raised her hand and said she was there on the last day of the falls. &uot;Suddenly, it was silent. There was no more smell. All we could hear was the sound of our own sobs as we walked away,&uot; she recalled.

&uot;That provided an arch for me,&uot; Hockenberry said. &uot;First I met Joe, who told me how it used to be, then this woman, who was there on the final day.&uot;

The author says he’s not sure if or when there will be another book; he and his wife, Alison, are expecting their second set of twins in July. They live in Brooklyn, N.Y.