Reviewed by journals marketing manager, Linda Bannister
“He was ready to help catch the remaining fireflies. Ready to cram all the lightning bugs into the old jar, all of them, all the light that container of glass could possibly hold.”—What the River Keeps, pg. 266.
What This River Keeps is focused on southeastern Indiana, a place where roots go back for generations, a place about land and gritty ordinary people and their yearnings to make the most of a hard earned living, loss, and love. At the center of the narrative is an elderly couple, Frank and Ethel and their adult son Ollie, who are about to lose, to eminent domain, a farm that has been theirs for nearly a century as the river in the title is flooded to make way for a reservoir—and “progress.”
What made this book a gripping read for me is the way the story is revealed in the details. Indiana stones, trees, and wildlife and farm animals are poetically described and intertwined with the unfolding story of heartbreaking circumstances. A drive on a country road on a summer night, brash and crusty young men prowling the fairgrounds for girls, trimming green beans for canning, and junked old cars all are images that reveal the universal pain and hope in ordinary lives.
Camping out on a cold sand bar, preparing bait, casting lines, deploying seasoned equipment, launching an old fishing boat, the movement of the river, the deep, dark pools where catfish lurk: all are described with reverence in a way that elevates the ordinary to the important and the treasured.
The characters are exposed with both rawness and affection. They are flawed and broken, haunted by regret and guilt, hungry for connection, and yearn for the past. There are no easy answers for the issues and sorrows that the characters face. The author is fair in his representation of the complexity of the conflicting values we are caught in when land and community clash and tragic loss results. But he makes me believe there is beauty that transcends loss and gives hope.
This book reminded me of the unique value of my Indiana home, both in its natural beauty and the beauty of family and community. Although I plan to give it as a gift to several Hoosiers I know, the experience it reflects goes well beyond Indiana.