Life in rural America can be very hard indeed as Ansay chronicles yet again in this novel yet in this story. Ansay offers a hope of sorts through the death of a young child and the perhaps miraculous events surrounding this death. (

)

kellyn | May 27, 2011 |

Once again, A Manette Ansay has written about small town life in Wisconsin in her lovely, lyrical style. She brings her characters to life with grace, allowing you to see them with all their shortcomings, the hopes and dreams that sustain them, all the details that make them unique, yet as familiar as people you might know. A tragedy, a drowning, polarizes the townspeople, those who believe in miracles and those who only accept hard facts. Yet the circumstances surrounding the event cannot logically be explained. How is it then, that redemption is possible? What forces are in charge here? A small town story that is simple, yet simply mesmerizing! (

)

berylweidenbach | Apr 18, 2010 |

This was one of the those books I picked up reluctantly, but once I got into it, I just loved it. Maybe being a Midwesterner and a small-town girl gave me a greater appreciation for this book, but I thought it was wonderful and the characters reminded me of people I know. The story centers around Gabriel, an unlovable boy who is abandoned by his father at this aunt and uncle's house in rural Wisconsin on Christmas. He believes his father's tale about the "river angel" and spends all of his time trying to find the angel. One night, he is harrassed by some high school kids at the river bridge and Gabriel vanishes, only to turn up the next morning in a local barn under unusual circumstances. (

)

mojomomma | Apr 17, 2010 |

Slow and a little pointless. Not much of a plot. (

)

Cailin | Jan 7, 2010 |

date ▼ | votes

Showing 4 of 4

▾Published reviews

no reviews | add a review

▾Other authors

» Add other authors

▾Work-to-work relationships

view history

▾Common Knowledge

You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.

For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.

Series (with order)

Canonical title

River Angel

Original title

Alternative titles

Original publication date

1999

People/Characters

Important places

Important events

Related movies

Awards and honors

Epigraph

An Jesus said unto them...If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. -Matthew 17:20

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Stephen Hall Smith

First words

The boy, Gabriel, and his father stopped for the night somewhere north of Canton, Ohio.

Quotations

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Norman, Lewis

Patchett, Ann

Publisher series

▾References

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English

None

▾LibraryThing members' description

Book description

Many citizens of Ambient, WI, believe the old tale of an angel living in the Onion River that runs through the heart of their town. Some claim to have seen it, "small and white as a seagull, hovering just above the water." It is the belief that leads a misfit ten-year-old boy to the river's edge one cold winter's night, where he encounters a band of troubled teenagers from the local high school, ouit drinking and driving around. Gabriel Carprenter vanishes that night, presumed drowned, though the teenagers tell different-and conflicting-stories. And when the dawn comes, his lifeless body is found by Ruthie Mader in a barn a mile away. "His body was a smell like flowers. When I saw him there, I thought he was just sleeping." No one in this quiet Midwestern community can agree whether a miracle or a hoax has occured. But as the story spreads, and curious tourists overrun the town-some skeptical, others reverent, still others angling for financial gain-one fact becomes certain beyond any doubt: life here will never be the same. (from book)

Haiku summary

▾Book descriptions

Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0380729741, Paperback)

A novel named River Angel featuring a character named Gabriel and a town called Ambient lays its cards on the table from the get-go: in her fourth book, A. Manette Ansay is obviously going to feature faith in a big way. As in her previous fiction, Ansay sets this tale in rural Wisconsin, but unlike her earlier work, which focused primarily on individual families, she has widened her scope to encompass an entire community. The story begins when 10-year-old Gabriel Carpenter comes to live with his aunt in Ambient, Wisconsin. An ungainly, unlovely child, Gabriel is shunned by other children and finds solace in a faith in God that verges on the fanatical. He has heard stories from his father about an angel that supposedly guards the banks of the Onion River and starts searching for it--a search that ultimately brings him to the wrong place at the wrong time and thus to the wrong angel--death.

What would have been simple tragedy in another town or another novel becomes the stuff of wonder in Ansay's Ambient: Gabriel's body is found miles from where he died, smelling faintly of flowers and glowing with an otherworldly light. From this point on, the novel focuses on how the various townspeople react to this supposed miracle. The town priest, Gabriel's teacher, the woman in whose barn his body was found--soon just about everybody in Ambient has been drawn into the conundrum of what Gabriel Carpenter's life and death really mean. As a study of human relationships and a meditation on the nature of the divine, River Angel succeeds on both counts.

(retrieved from Amazon Wed, 02 Jan 2013 21:27:47 -0500)

(see all 2 descriptions)

▾Library descriptions

When a drowned boy surfaces in a barn a mile downstream, still dead but smiling, the people of a town in Wisconsin see the hand of an angel, said to live by the river. The barn becomes a shrine and a tourist industry grows.