Customer Reviews

After River: A Novel

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Natalie Ward, the heroine of Donna Milner's exquisitely written debut novel must finally confront the ghosts of her past. She's a happily married middle-aged mother and a natural journalist who also has a capacity for engendering great empathy and kindness, but she also has secrets - mostly of the family variety, and mostly sublimated. It is these secrets, and also a sudden phone call from her daughter Jenny telling her that her mother Nettie is dying, that thrusts Natalie back into the past where she forced to relive events - both gorgeous and catastrophic - as she comes of age on her family's dairy farm in British Columbia.

It is the turbulent mid-sixties and the impressionable sixteen-year-old Natalie is living a secluded and insular life with her parents Gus and Nettie, and her three brothers, Morgan and Carl, and Natalie's favourite, the brilliant and bookish older brother, Boyer. Indeed the Wards live in their own world in the long, hot summer of 1966 where all is drenched in the golden glow of the summer sun on their farm near the town of Atwood just miles from the US/Canadian border.

A mercurial and imaginative girl, with a virtuous sense of conscience, Natalie seems to relish in her alienation. At school she does nothing to encourage friendships, content to spend most of her spare time with Boyer, playing his word games in his room up in the attic and reading his books. Things change when a young American draft-dodger by the name of River Jordan is employed by Natalie as a handyman and flows into the lives of the Ward family with his large green duffel bag, his guitar case over his shoulder, his hair the sun-streaked colour of a hayfield drying in the sun.

At first, for Natalie, River comes across as a hippie, perhaps representative of all of the oddly dressed young Americans marching beneath peace signs, protesting the Vietnam War while also sticking flowers into the gun barrels of riot police. But soon enough Natalie is falling under his spell, his eyes entrancing her, "like the colour of a blue-green ocean," an ocean she had only seen in her imagination. The rest of the Wards accept River's reasons for coming to Canada, his gentle and beguiling nature at first seemingly a perfect fit for this close-knit family, especially Boyer whose analytical mind craves knowledge and ultimately understands how River is exorcising his democratic right to choose.

Only Gus, a blue collar working man who wears his long johns like a second skin, winter and summer, belies an instinctual mistrust of the young man, considering him to be one of the spoiled greasy haired hooligans who stand under a peace banner because they don't have the guts to fight for their country. None of the Wards however, can predict the eventual heartache that will follow River's arrival, a heartache that sweeps "like a cold wind" through the valley, shattering this family and becoming an irrevocable tragedy of errors accomplished in the course of a few long ago summer days. Indeed the Wards, and Natalie in particular spend the rest of their lives coming to terms with the events of that year, River's presence eroding the jagged edges of their resistance, his ghost echoing throughout their world for decades to come.

When Natalie travels towards Atwood on the bus thirty-five years later, "like a time machine carrying her in slow motion back to her past," she must ask for forgiveness from her mother Nettie and her brother Boyer and see beyond the faded edges of memory. Natalie longs to unburden herself, to confess her part the downfall of her family and to say out loud how it all came about, and where it could have been changed.

It's hard to fathom which themes are more profound in this novel: the bigotry and intolerance that gradually isolate the Ward family in a town where there is little respect for tolerating anything that is different different, or a young girl that is so blinded with what she believes is love that she gradually loses sight of reality with devasting consequences; in the end, she's a child lost in the moment, believing that her desire has made her an adult. Ultimately a novel about the past and what has been left behind, Donna Milner captures the beautiful natural rhythms of day-to-day workings of dairy farm life and the ways that personal jealousies can balloon into ruthless and bitter vendettas.

Throughout, Milner's graceful prose is deliberately propulsive but plain, and her talent lies in her careful plotting as Natalie moves through her solitary world, bound to her mother Nettie and her brother Boyer by a shared secret. She's unable to let go of her unamed resentment that she carries with her out the door the day she left the family fold.

Obviously River's arrival became catalyst, causing a fracture of connectedness when the glue that holds the Ward family together was suddenly torn apart. For Natalie what was once predictable and imperceptible suddenly seems to be accelerating with an almost unimaginable force. Part of her growth is that she must come to terms with how much has been lost and left behind even as she tries to understand how River came to the Wards, became a part of them and, how he ultimately forced them to confront their deepest fears and desires. Mike Leonard May 08.

I loved this book. I agree with all the other reviewers have written, and cannot urge you enough to buy it,read it,share it,and rave about it.

I sometimes find myself scanning pages, but with this book I was careful to read every word and to re-read whole sentences and paragraphs. It is hard to believe that Donna Milner did not know she was a writer! She's a gifted writer, and I hope that well runs deeply as I anxiously await her next novel.

First book written by this author. Bought it on a recommendation from the newspaper and it was one of the best books I've read to date. I know this author is coming out with another shortly and I for one am very anxious for it. This book is a definate "must read"!

A river is a natural stream of water that flows in a definite direction, shaping the landscape and in turn, being shaped by the different objects and events that it meets up with. Possibly this is the reason that Donna Milner chose this as the name for the American war protester who came to work on a Canadian dairy farm. This is a well written first novel that tells the story of love, commitment, accommodation, betrayal and forgiveness in a unique and powerful way.

This is such a well-written book that it just floats off the pages as you read. The book is full of interesting characters and their unique positions in the family. I truly enjoyed reading it and was kind of sad when it was over. I can't wait to see what the author comes up with next!

Although this was reccomended by a friend, it just never packed a punch for me, I wouldn't reccomend it unless you found it in the seat pocket on a very long flight

I am a friend of the author's sister in law. My friend lent me the book to read and I thought it could be a good read, but was not expecting much. I was surprised to find it was an enthralling, romantic and touching novel. I loved it and can't wait to read Donna's next book, which I know has been published.

This book was very well written; hard to put down. It had surprising turn of events and touched the heart. I can't wait to read the next novel by this author.I've purchased it and am waiting for it to arrive.

I really enjoyed the family life of the dairy farm, and the story did keep me reading although I figured out the major conflict early on in the story. The only objection I had were that so many sad and bad things happened to the family. That is just too much bad luck for anyone. How could young Natalie not be destroyed by what happened?
How could one person add so much loss to everyone in the family? I guess everyone does make a differnce to the lives of those around us, but with River it was all too over the top/

I appreciated Nettie and that she did love her husband in the midst of his shortcomings and that he was a good father and husband. I also loved the fact that Nettie had faith and loved her children more than anything.

This is a very well written novel just a little too much sadness for me.

I couldn't wait to find out the end of this book. Although I did guess some of the compelling secrets, the final chapters took me by surprise. I compare this book to Mermaid Chair with its family secrets and the theme of forgiveness. A gem of a book....and I don't give 5* very often.