THE RIVER
From the best-selling author of The Dog Stars, this is a masterful tale of wilderness survival in the vein of Into the Wild and The Call of the Wild. It is the story of two college friends 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 paddles 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.
★ A NATIONAL BESTSELLER
★ AN INDIE NEXT PICK
★ FORBES RECOMMENDED BOOKS FOR SUMMER 2019
★ ONE OF THE TEN BOOKS YOU’LL WANT TO READ THIS SPRING, WALL STREET JOURNAL
★ ONE OF THE BOOKS TO LOOK OUT FOR IN MARCH, NYT
★ ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR SO FAR, AMAZON
★ ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR SO FAR, APPLE
★ ONE OF 2019’S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS, LITERARY HUB
★ ONE OF 2019’S MOST ANTICIPATED FICTION, BOOKPAGE
★ ONE OF THE 2019’S BOOKS WE CAN’T WAIT TO READ, AMAZON BOOK REVIEW PODCAST
PRAISE & REVIEWS
“Utter joy… A suspenseful tale told with glorious drama and lyrical flair.”
–Denise Mina, The New York Times Book Review
“Urgent, visceral writing–I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. A beautiful, heartrending exploration of male friendship.”
–Clare Mackintosh, bestselling author of Let Me Lie
“[T]here is plenty of tension here, but where Heller really scores is the extraordinarily high quality of his writing about the natural world, which is lyrical and action-packed by turns.”
–Laura Wilson, The Guardian
“A fiery tour de force… [The River] recalls his debut, The Dog Stars, with its poetic, staccato sentences and masterfully crafted prose… And what a story he tells… I could not put this book down. It truly was terrifying and unutterably beautiful.”
–Alison Borden, The Denver Post
“[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
“Heller puts his knowledge of canoeing and currents to fascinating use. He has created indelible characters in Wynn and Jack, pals who are almost exact opposites: the former a bearish galoot who’s convinced that people are basically good, and the latter a pessimist who’s convinced that their only hope for salvation is to paddle as fast as they can.”
–Ross Gray, Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Another superbly crafted adventure-action-mystery story… Reminiscent of James Dickey’s classic Deliverance… The beat of Heller’s novel builds to a furious pace.”
–John Newlin, New York Journal of Books
“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
“It is a rare literary feat when an author is able to marry plot and prose with the soaring majesty that Heller achieves in The River.”
–Drew Gallagher, Fredericksburg Free Lance Star
“Masterfully paced and artfully told, The River is a page turner that demands the reader slow down and relish the sheer poetry of the language. … The River thrills as Heller invites his characters to confront their own mortality without losing sight of the deep connections between humans and their environment.”
–Lauren Bufferd, BookPage, Starred Review
“Using an artist’s eye to describe Jack and Wynn’s wilderness world, Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist Heller has transformed his own outdoor experiences into a heart-pounding adventure that’s hard to put down.”
–Library Journal, Starred Review
“Two college friends’ leisurely river trek becomes an ordeal of fire and human malice… Heller confidently manages a host of tensions… and his pacing is masterful as well, briskly but calmly capturing the scenery in slower moments, then running full-throttle and shifting to barreling prose when danger is imminent… Fresh and affecting… An exhilarating tale delivered with the pace of a thriller and the wisdom of a grizzled nature guide.”
–Kirkus (Starred Review)
“Suspenseful… With its evocative descriptions of nature’s splendor and brutality, Heller’s novel beautifully depicts the powers that can drive humans apart—and those that compel them to return repeatedly to one another.”
–Publishers Weekly
“Heller once again chronicles life-or-death adventure with empathy for the natural world and the characters who people it. He writes most mightily of the boys’ friendship and their beloved, uncompromising wilderness, depicting those layers of life that lie far beyond what is more commonly seen.”
–Booklist