The River

A Novel

By: Peter Heller

Narrated by: Mark Deakins

Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

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 Audio

Critic reviews

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

I would have enjoyed this book...

when I was a teenager. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it later, too, when I was raising my young son. But here I am, now an old man...and I can't imagine enjoying this story any more than I did today. I couldn't put down. Actually, I mean I couldn't stop listening to it. Beautifully written and beautifully narrated. I was in the canoe with them. I smelled the smoke. I felt rampage of the rapids. Most of all I felt like part of that thing called "best friendship". Thank you, Peter, for another wonderful story.

Don’t be fooled by the reviews

This book was the worst audiobook and possibly the worst crime/mystery novel I’ve ever encountered. The author had no sense of plotting or character development, and spent too much time on descriptions of how the boys spent their time gathering blueberries, fishing and camping. The blueberry mentions became a joke as we listened to it in the car, then eventually shut the whole thing off from boredom about an hour from the end. Not recommended.

no northwoods authenticity

I was disappointed with the artificial constructs used to make the story work. There was any over glorification of the 2 MC paddling past. Nothing about their trip had the ring of truthfulness. This is the northwoods but there were never any bugs. It might be worth a sale price but not a credit.

Disappointing

Two best friends at college who are expert outdoorsmen set off on a long canoe trip through the Canadian wilderness. The author is clearly an authority on camping, canoeing and fishing in a remote region (or has done his homework), but beyond that, the plot is simply not very interesting. The two main characters, despite a detailed backstory, come off as wooden and two-dimensional. It’s hard to feel much empathy for them. Mark Deakins has perfect diction, but for this book he adds very little emotion or drama.

Perhaps it would be better if compressed into a short story.

Couldn't put it down

One new twist after another. I was pleasantly surprised at the ending. Not what I expected.

Not for me. I dislike damsel in distress plots.

I was expecting/hoping for a great wilderness adventure story and for a while I thought this book was delivering.. At first I liked the two main characters who seemed like fantasy men, smart yet brilliant outdoorsmen. At one point, the book describes how one can run 2 hours uphill with a female with cerebral palsy on his back. Yeah right. And thus starts my extreme dislike of the story.

The book fell apart with the introduction of what would be the only female character and whose sole purpose is to be gravely injured and in need to be cared for and rescued by the fantasy men.

The “damsel in distress” genre is my least favorite. At the point where there was a hint of physical attraction of one of them men towards the helpless woman, I was done with the book. And in the end, it had no redeeming qualities for me. I hated the second half of the book. For me a book is an epic fail when all I want is the female character to get her head blown off.

Boring

The story was extremely slow moving, repetitive and dull, I kept listening hoping something other than paddling and fishing would happen.

compelling, well written

Lovely descriptions. Good diction and prose.
Interesting and performed well (though the narrator does occasionally mix up character voices in the beginning).

Peter Heller should write less and do a better job

Peter Heller should write less and do a better job. His book, Dog Stars, was great. Every other book after that has gotten a little worse. The river is not very good at all. I wist he would take more time and deliver a book that is worthy of him.

Started well...

Started well but became tiresome, boring, and predictable at the end. Feels like he didn’t know how to end this. Jumped the shark.