Run, River

By: Joan Didion

Narrated by: Holly Cate

Joan Didion's electrifying first novel is a haunting portrait of a marriage whose wrong turns and betrayals are at once absolutely idiosyncratic and a razor-sharp commentary on the history of California. Everett McClellan and his wife, Lily, are the great-grandchildren of pioneers, and what happens to them is a tragic epilogue to the pioneer experience, a story of murder and betrayal that only Didion could tell with such nuance, sympathy, and suspense.

©1963 Joan Didion. Copyright renewed 1991 by Joan Didion (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Thought-provoking, riveting, memorable

This powerfully insightful first novel is Joan Didion's finest work. A finely-drawn meditation, it focuses on Lily, a shy and melancholy young matron who yearns for love, but struggles with the challenges of everyday life. Thoughtful but unemotional, Lily and Everett are quintessential Central Valley Californians, strong as the rich soil they till, but unable to confront their personal demons. Leading unexamined lives, they are filled with emotions they cannot express, forever reaching, like their gold-seeking forebears, for the real Eldorado that lies still further on, a mirage just beyond their grasp.

The narrator has a pleasant voice while reading descriptive passages of the book, but her character voices are a disaster. Depressed people are not best represented through high, squeaky, baby voices, like every female character in this audiobook had - Sarah, Martha, Edith, even Lily. The midwestern senator inexplicably had a southern accent. Male voices were unrealistic, exaggeratedly low, without nuance. Lily sings off-key, but the narrator merely recites the lyrics in a stiff monotone, failing the author's purpose of adding authentic layers to the setting and character they were so carefully chosen to reflect. However, while the disappointing narration distracts, it cannot diminish the compelling characters and strong storyline of this fine work.

Thought-provoking, riveting, and memorable, Didion's "Run River" is a quiet masterpiece.

well written but a slow chaotic story.

the writer is good with words and images, but the story was too overwrought with too many characters sprinkled across two biggest span of time without great connective tissue. I didn't finish it

OK if you like tragic love stories…

…about angsty rich white people who are all unlikeable, though real. Real is the best thing they’ve got going for them. Narration is kind of robotic.

Can't finish- truly tried

Read this book, but I advise against listening. This narrator takes the prize for ineptitude. I detected not a whit of understanding, of a single character.

Beautiful prose, dull story

As others have said, the narrator is pretty bad. The women all have little-girl voices, the men all have exaggeratedly flat, manly voices. The narrator is fine during descriptive passages.

The prose is beautiful, and the first half or even two-thirds of the book kept my attention because the characters (especially that of Martha) are well depicted, though the plot is fairly arbitrary and dependent on convenient deaths. The last third of the book becomes increasingly pointless and the ending is definitely disappointing.

Not recommended.