The River
A Novel
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The River
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Narrated by:
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Mark Deakins
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Written by:
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Peter Heller
About this listen
A Nominee for the 2020 Edgar Allan Poe Awards
National Best Seller
"A fiery tour de force…. I could not put this book down. It truly was terrifying and unutterably beautiful." (Alison Borden, The Denver Post)
From the best-selling author of The Dog Stars, the story of two college students on a wilderness canoe trip - a gripping tale of a friendship tested by fire, white water, and violence.
Wynn and Jack have been best friends since freshman orientation, bonded by their shared love of mountains, books, and fishing. Wynn is a gentle giant, a Vermont kid never happier than when his feet are in the water. Jack is more rugged, raised on a ranch in Colorado where sleeping under the stars and cooking on a fire came as naturally to him as breathing.
When they decide to canoe the Maskwa River in Northern Canada, they anticipate long days of leisurely paddling and picking blueberries and nights of stargazing and reading paperback Westerns. But a wildfire making its way across the forest adds unexpected urgency to the journey.
When they hear a man and woman arguing on the fog-shrouded riverbank and decide to warn them about the fire, their search for the pair turns up nothing and no one. But: The next day, a man appears on the river, paddling alone. Is this the man they heard? And, if he is, where is the woman?
From this charged beginning, master storyteller Peter Heller unspools a headlong, heart-pounding story of desperate wilderness survival.
©2019 Peter Heller (P)2019 Random House AudioWhat the critics say
Edgar Allan Poe Award Nominee
"Utter joy... A suspenseful tale told with glorious drama and lyrical flair." —Denise Mina, The New York Times Book Review
"[A] poetic and unnerving wilderness thriller… Full of rushing life and profound consequences. Every move Jack and Wynn make along the river has the chance to kill them or those they’re trying to save, and the result is a novel that sweeps you away, each page filled with wonder and awe for a natural world we can quantify with science but can rarely predict with emotion." —Tod Goldberg, USA Today
"Engaging...satisfying... Terse and tight. Short, lyrical paragraphs are packed with action and keep the story moving along... Like a lot of backcountry missions, the most compelling parts of the story aren’t necessarily the rapids or the high-risk moves. Instead they’re the quiet moments where Wynn and Jack are coupling their rods together and wading slowly through vivid, tannic streams." —Heather Hansman, Outside Magazine
What listeners say about The River
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Olivier
- 2021-01-18
Great tension
Loved this book great description and beautifully crafted story.
The author make us sit in the canoe with the guys.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 2020-11-28
It was OK. Enjoyed the setting.
This had suspenseful moments but overall was not that mysterious or intriguing. I enjoyed the way the story was told but wished there was a lot more mystery or suspense. The natural setting - even on fire - was nice to hear about.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- KM
- 2019-04-12
A wasted opportunity
This book is "The Martian" crossed with "Deliverance" written by someone who once went on a camping trip and has never read anything except "Hardy Boys" mysteries. I presume it will therefore be a huge hit but I hated it.
The setting is the "Northern Canadian wilderness" and it read like the author worked from a map but never experienced it himself (I was expecting nature writing evoking a specific place and that is not what I got). The suspense of "will the forest fire burn us up" was somewhat engaging but the suspense of "did this woman get attacked by her husband or by a bear" failed to catch hold: the answer was obvious. The second subplot ("who are these rednecks who are also inexplicably excellent outdoorsmen while at the same time lazy and drunk") failed to take the reader anywhere interesting (and why is no one but Americans canoeing in the Manitoba wilderness?).
The narrator was fine. Some of his pronunciation was distracting to this Canuck canoeist -- for example he said PORT-age rather than port-AGE, but perhaps that is how they say it in America and all of the characters were, after all, American.
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1 person found this helpful