The River

I devoured “The River” in one breathless gulp. This book earns all five stars. It lures you in with a moody vibe, then hits like a freight train in the most devastating way. I didn’t see that emotional gut-punch coming.

I raced through the pages and found myself in tears at the end. Who knew a thriller could pack such an emotional punch? The story pulses with life and atmosphere.
Two friends paddling into the wild, danger just out of sight, and that prickly feeling that the forest is watching, waiting to swallow them whole. Jack and Wynn are the kind of characters you want to chase down after the last page. I was all in and didn’t want to let go.

The final stretch is both brutal and beautiful, fitting this story so perfectly that show more the heartbreak felt almost justified. It stays lodged in your brain long after you close the book. Truly unforgettable.

How do you bounce back after a book like this? I was left both shattered and amazed, knowing full well that nothing I read next will match this unforgettable journey. show less

The River by Peter Heller is a 2019 Knopf Publishing Group publication.

An intense adventure between man and nature amidst a battle between good and evil…

Two close friends, Wynn and Jack, one from Vermont and the other from Colorado, each with different temperaments, decide to canoe the Maskwa River in northern Canada. They have dreams of taking it slow and easy, kicking back and enjoying nature at its finest.

However, a wildfire changes the tone of their trip, adding a sense of unease that intensifies when, after hearing a couple arguing, they attempt to warn them of the fire, but can’t seem to locate them in the fog. The next day they encounter a man paddling alone on the river, who claims his wife has gone missing.

From there Wynn show more and Jack find themselves in a taut, dangerous situation as they search for the missing woman, while the wildfire builds to a crescendo.

Wow! Talk about white knuckle suspense! This book is less than three hundred pages long, but sometimes the best things come in small packages.

The story is packed with exceptional and stunning scenery one can truly envision, and the characterizations are just incredible. I understood fully the different personalities Wynn and Jack possessed, how they each had definite and strong opinions about how to approach their unexpected dilemma. The precision timing carries the story from a relaxed excursion to a nightmarish race against time with exceptional pacing that kept me on the edge of seat.

I would agree the story could and should be labeled as a thriller, but it’s much more than that. So much happens in such a short span of time, it isn’t until the final chapter that one has the chance to really stop an reflect on all events leading up to that moment, and how quickly one’s life can drastically change.

The deep emotional impact remains long after the final page is turned. This thought- provoking story was released in 2019 and the message was clear and profound enough at that time. Everyday life poses at least some risk and can turn on a dime, as we have witnessed in the past few weeks, making an already disquieting story about coping with random, unforeseen events feel even more timely than usual.

I’m pushing the ‘recommend’ button on this one.

All the stars for this one! show less

My introduction to Peter Heller was a dystopian thriller called The Dog Stars. That was reason enough for me to turn to his recent (2019) adventure novel, The River. In it he introduces two young men, Jack and Wynn are best friends taking some time off from there terms at Dartmouth, sharing a love of books and the outdoors. Jack is compact and pragmatic. Wynn is a big guy with a big heart, always eager to see the good in everyone. They’ve taken countless canoeing and outdoor trips together, so a canoe journey down the Maskwa River in northern Canada seems just like heaven.

Despite their strong wilderness skills, their adventure is put to the test when they discover a massive wildfire threatens to overtake them. Even worse, while show more paddling through the fog, they overhear a heated argument between a husband and wife camped on the riverside, only to find a man paddling alone the next day. What starts off as a fun-filled retreat into nature becomes a race against time that pits them against the very river they meant to savor.

"They had paddled many rivers together in the two years they’d known each other and climbed a lot of peaks. Sometimes one had more appetite for danger, sometimes the other. There was a delicate but strong balance of risk versus caution in their team thinking, with the roles often fluid, and it’s what made them such good partners." (p 15)

One is provided with the appearance of a wildfire that seems unstoppable. Add a damsel in distress and her dangerous husband and you have the right mix for excitement. But that would be of little interest if there was nothing else to sustain your interest. Fortunately, Heller intersperses the adventure with flashbacks that provide context to the friendship of Jack and Wynn. Heller's narration shifts in intensity, one moment supremely focused on his characters, the next at a distance from them. Initially, the third person point-of-view focuses on Jack and Wynn's surroundings, the vast Canadian wilderness; pages of description occur before either character is named. Jack's interior life given the most space. The novel mirrors the river; just as it widens and narrows, languidly drifts or rushes through rapids, perspective and tone shift to further the story.

They're both supremely well-read college students, and they (Wynn especially) have a love for philosophy. The conflicts in the novel are ultimately human-driven, despite the wilderness survival backdrop, and the clashes that Jack and Wynn have about human nature are in direct conversation with the plot points. From the outset, Wynn wants to see the best in the lone man they find canoeing, but Jack is certain the man is a killer. Heller also uses religious language, suggesting that Jack and Wynn are on a pilgrimage of sorts—reinforcing the idea that this is a morality play about the concepts of good and evil.

While the opening section of the novel acts as a prelude, the story moves along more and more quickly as does both the river and the fire. Ultimately, The River offers both a literal and figurative journey; it is a thrilling and contemplative page-turner with sharp insight into the human condition. show less

Two friends take a canoeing trip of a lifetime down a remote and dangerous river. A wildfire and a chance encounter with an arguing couple turns their adventure into a nightmare. Lyrical and lovely the taut prose builds suspense beautifully. Jack and Wynn have a bit of an ‘Of Mice and Men’ feel to their relationship, though the lumbering Wynn is an artist and a scholar. Jack is more cynical and harsh. The story balances character depth with a thrilling plot perfectly.

“They loved how the darkness amplified the sounds— the gulp of the dipping paddles, the knock of the wood shaft against the gunwale.”

“There was a principal in aesthetics: the more you prettify something, the more you risk undermining its value.”

Two friends on a long journey down a river in the wilderness of northern Canada are beset by a raging wildfire approaching from a distance upriver. Delayed by an encounter with a man who claims his wife has disappeared, they go back to search for her, only to find themselves with grave doubts about the truth of his story. Caught between danger ahead and behind, they use every ounce of their strength and skill to try to survive.

It's a riverting, fast-moving story, filled with brilliantly written passages of natural beauty, friendship, but also terror, fear and loss. The astonishing moment when the widlfire overtakes them feels like a furious apocalyptic encapsulation of the foremost modern anxiety of environmental destruction show more overwhelming struggling humanity. show less

Not quite a thriller, though I tagged it so. Thrillers hurtle the reader along, often sacrificing character development and writing style. This book has it all. A great plot, with a dangerous wildfire, a mysterious injured woman, some drunks with guns, and near-starvation; marred only slightly by the sudden epilogue, describing what happened instead of taking us along in it. The main characters, friends from Dartmouth, are fleshed out with back-stories; they have thoughts as well as actions.

The writing was amazing. Deep-dive technical yet never-boring descriptions of paddling: "On the lakes above they'd had all the time in the world and so had paddled expedition-style, with the sternman finishing his stroke with a slight twist of the show more shaft and the paddle's power face arcing outward, the J-stroke" and fly-fishing (Heller is obviously expert at both); balanced with almost poetic descriptions: "The swift shadows striped them with running stains that flowed over without a snag and suddenly cooled the air ..."

Yet when the plot picked up, so did the pace of the sentences: "They were strong paddlers and they lay into a steady rhythm and they stuck to the center of the river where a blast from a shotgun would be less likely to kill them."

One of my favorite books of the year so far. show less

I enjoyed this novel the way I enjoy an old sweater of mine that had the sleeves sewn into it inside-out at the factory and somehow made it past the quality inspectors and got shipped to the store that way.

I mean, I really do love that sweater, even with the thready knotty seams showing. And likewise, I loved this novel. It is charmingly flawed.

All the time as I read this novel I kept thinking, "wait a minute," and "what about that other thing," and "why are these two men enjoying a lazy languid time trout fishing, throwing the fish back, and practicing their cast while filled with languid wonder at the world, when there is a deadly fire coming their way that is going to be very hard to outrun and the men have been talking about this show more fire nearly continuously before stopping to fish?"

An extremely important plot point in the novel hinges on a woman being too injured to talk about what happened to her, even though she is "sobbing" when the two men find her, and her lack of speech seems very convenient, thank you, as it allows the men to carry on a conversation about what might have happened to her, all while she is lying there listening, too injured to set them straight.

This is not complaining. The lack of guile in the plotting delighted me. This is a very sincere book, seams and all. show less