Monday, June 11, 2007

The River Wife by Jonis Agee

This is the book keeping me up nights. Not suprising since in it a young woman is kept up nights reading the story of Annie Lark, the first in a line of women who marry river men. Annie is easy to love, from the moment we meet her during an earthquake, to her last days--which come all too soon, even after a couple hundred pages. The novel is nearly 400 pages total, so you can live in it a few days, and trust me, there are other River Wives to love. Jonis Agee wrote this full and unforgettable novel over nearly a decade, adding it to her impressive list of books this summer when it offically comes out in July. So satisfying you will wonder why books like this seem so few and far between.

1 comment:

St Paul reader said...

Agee rewrites history, with a twist. Rescuing a real-life flood victim through an act of imagination, she paints a moving, rich, and entrancing portrait of the effects of love. Each scene is a perfect vignette, evoking the landscape and ethos of a lost era.