The River King

ISBN: 0099286521
Author: Alice Hoffman
Description:
Alice Hoffman beautifully choreographs the battle between nature and civilisation to mirror the action in her mesmerising 13th novel The River King. Although set in the contemporary, three block-long village of Haddan, Massachusetts, its enchanting gothic flavour makes it feel like a much earlier era. Haddan School, built perilously close to the river in 1858, "had been fashioned out of river rock, grey slabs flecked with mica", and the cupboards have a "distinctly weedy odour". The school's folklore matches its mid-19th century beginnings with tales of blood-seeped roses, a hanging from the rafters and people lead astray by the "pale green light rising from the river each evening" into "fields rife with late-blooming asters and milkweed". The four outsiders at the novel's heart are brought together by the dramatic forces of love and death: two new students, Gus, a rebellious, hapless loner; Carlin, a beautiful swimmer from Florida; Betsy, the unconventional photography teacher trapped in a conventional engagement, and Abel, the local cop who comes to the school to investigate a drowning. After a tragic flood, the novel picks up pace and switches from gothic horror to detective story with hints of The X Files. A ghost appears in Betsy's photos and leaves mementoes from the river all around the school. When the drowned corpse is found to have faecal matter in its lungs in a cleaned-up river, the plot takes on echoes of Chinatown and is no less riveting for that. Although Hoffman misses some of the menace and narrative drive of a true thriller, her portrait of a secluded world, which has developed its own secrets, rules and inability to confront evil, weaves a murky and disturbing spell. --Cherry Smyth

Pages: 336
Format: Paperback
Genre: Drama
Rating: Not yet rated

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Second Natureslight crease on the front cover, otherwise in very good condition. Described as a latter day beauty and the beast. Alice Hoffman books are always very readable.
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At RiskA story of an American family, as ordinary and special as your own. In the mold of Anne Tyler
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Practical Magica great atmospheric storyteller her books are a real pleasure - practical magic - independant
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At RiskThis is the story of an American family whose lives are shattered when their 11-year-old daughter, a gymnast with her sights set on the Olympics, discovers she has contracted AIDS from a contaminated blood transfusion. A...
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