Lost Man's River: Shadow Country Trilogy (2) [Paperback]

Peter Matthiessen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 29, 1998

In this darkly compelling drama of fathers and sons, land and rapacity, murder, honor, and revenge, an "extraordinarily accomplished writer" ("Philadelphia Inquirer") returns to the primeval landscape of the Florida Everglades, the setting of his bestselling "Killing Mister Watson".

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The brutal murder of a prominent sugarcane planter in the early 20th century was the cornerstone for Killing Mr. Watson (LJ 6/1/90), Matthiessen's first book in a trilogy about the man, the murder, and its far-reaching impact on several pioneer families in southern Florida. Fifty years after Watson's death, his son Lucius emerges from self-imposed exile, asking surviving witnesses probing questions most would rather leave unanswered. The Watson homestead is at stake, and Lucius aims to clear his father's name of the crimes attributed to him. But as Lucius investigates further, he finds it harder to cling to his version of the truth. Like the earlier book, this work depends on oral histories, and its numerous reminiscences create a rich story; however, the leisurely tone and large cast make for slow reading. Those so inclined to dive in, however, will find passages of unexpected resonance amid the gnarled family trees. Readers should peruse the first (more succinct) book to get the full story before tackling this labor of love from the famed wilderness writer. For larger fiction collections.
-?Marc A. Kloszewski, Indiana Free Lib., Pa.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

A large, vivid, ambitious novel from one of the country's most accomplished American writers, offering a powerful portrait of life among the hunters, renegades, and wanderers infesting the Florida Everglades in the century's early decades. Matthiessen's (African Silences, 1991, etc.) latest is in many ways a sequel to his 1990 novel, Killing Mister Watson. In that work, the violent, vigorous figure of Edgar Watson dominated the action. A settler in the still wild Everglades in the early years of the century, Edgar, with his reputation as a killer, was both respected and feared by his neighbors. Then, in 1910, died during a confrontation with a posse. But who actually fired the fatal shot? Had Edgar fired first? And was he in fact a murderer? His son Lucius, an academic, has tried repeatedly to escape from his father's lengthy shadow. Once again, in the 1950s, Lucius is drawn reluctantly back into the struggle to puzzle out what his father was when a cache of documents about him comes to light. In the company of some of his father's cronies and a few of his bitter enemies, all of them old men nursing grudges and powerful recollections of frontier days in the Everglades, Lucius travels ever deeper into the wilderness. Along the way he hears some extraordinary tales about the lives of the local farmers, hunters, smugglers, and moonshiners, assembles a moving portrait of the destruction of the fragile ecosystem of the Everglades, and finally discovers the painful, complex truth about his father's life and death. Lucius's long, complex relationship with his father's memory is brilliantly handled, as is the portrait of the fate of the Everglades, its wildlife, and its tough, idiosyncratic inhabitants. Interweaving a lament for the lost wilderness, a shrewd, persuasive study of character, and a powerful meditation on the sources of American violence, Matthiessen has produced one of the best novels of recent years. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; First Vintage International Edition edition (September 29, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067973564X
• ISBN-13: 978-0679735649
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 10 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #402,588 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The great mass of familial documentation was overwhelming., February 22, 1998

By 

Edward W. Jawer (WYNCOTE, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lost Man's River: (Paperback)

I am an avid fan of Peter Matthiessen, and eagerly anticipated "Lost Man's River". After reading 150 to 200 pages, I began to wonder what he was getting at with the monumental absorbtion in the trivia of names, relationships, and memories. As I progressed further, waiting fruitlessly for either some fuller character development or an essential story line to take shape, my disappoinment began to mount. By the time I finished, I am saddened to report that I felt cheated. The encyplopedic attention to detail required to give full attention to the book, does not fulfill it's end, nor is the final surprise a justifiable finale to the mind boggling littany of detail to which we are exposed. Hopefully, the final volume of the trilogy will restore the interest so greatly initiated by "Killing Mr. Watson".

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read "Killing Mr. Watson" first, December 19, 2006

By 

Timothy Miller (Stockton, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lost Man's River: Shadow Country Trilogy (2) (Paperback)

This is the second book of a trilogy that begins with "Killing Mr. Watson," and ends with "Bone by Bone." If you read Killing Mr. Watson, and were fascinated by it, as many readers and critics have been, you'll be tempted to read the rest of the trilogy. Dead Man's River begins many years after E.J. Watson's death. Watson's son, Lucius, is struggling to reconstruct his father's life and death. You might have noticed in Killing Mr. Watson that the story, told by those who knew Watson, contains gaps, ambiguities, contradictions and mysteries. There's plenty of room for sequels.

Lucius finds some answers, and also uncovers new mysteries and contradictions. Along the way, you'll learn more about the many fascinating characters you first encountered as narrators in "Killing Mr. Watson." The final book in the trilogy, "Bone by Bone," tells the tale again, from the point of view of Mr. Watson.

The Mr. Watson trilogy is reminiscent of the well-known film, Rashomon, by Akira Kurosawa. It re-tells the same tale several times, from different perspectives. This is a gutsy kind of trilogy to write. A lesser author would burden the reader with repetition and excessive detail. Mathiessen, one of few authors ever to win one National Book Awards for fiction, and another for nonfiction, is up to the task, if anyone is.

Dead Man's River suffers from the usual problems found in the second book in a trilogy. It doesn't begin the story, nor end it, and it's nearly incomprehensible if you haven't read the first book. Consider, who would enjoy "The Two Towers," the second book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, if he or she had not first read "The Fellowship of the Ring," and did not intend to read "Return of the King"?

If, after reading Killing Mr. Watson, you're eager to know about Mr. Watson and the other pioneer families of that time and place, read the rest of the trilogy, in sequence. I think you'll be glad you did. I certainly am glad that I did. Matthiessen is a master of so many things -- pioneer history of Florida, diverse cultures, nature writing, environmentalism, character development, historical accuracy and detail, dead-on vernacular dialog, inventive style, and, in this trilogy, compelling mystery.

Also, in this trilogy, Mathiessen explores the nature of truth itself, as the same story is retold several times by people who all think they know the truth, though their understanding is filtered by their own perspectives, limited knowledge and vested interests.

On the other hand, if Killing Mr. Watson filled your cup, you might want to stop there. It works very well as a stand-alone novel.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not nearly as good as the first book, but..., May 10, 2000

By 

Michael Reynolds - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lost Man's River: Shadow Country Trilogy (2) (Paperback)

I loved "Killing Mr. Watson," the first book, and thought the genealogy in it was great, though I finally did find myself making a (complex) chart of who was related to who. But even with this knowledge already in hand, "Lost Man's River" seemed to bog down. The modern parts, especially, were very forced. Sally, among others, was just not a believable character, and the sex scene made her even less believable. Moreover, when is all this set? The author hints that it was 50 years after Mr. Watson's death, which would necessarily make it 1960, and so makes Lucius age 70 and Rob--admitttedly--an octogenarian. But the tone and language, plus the attitudes towards drugs, race, sex, etc. are much closer to 1975 (at least) than 1960. Several characters are depicted as veterans of a war in Asia that "no one ever gave a damn about." Sounds more like Vietnam to me than Guadalcanal or Okinawa. Ironically (and it's a big irony) the most interesting thing about the book is the critical name change for the family that was the "Richard Hamilton" clan in the first book. In this book, the author calls them the Hardens, but it's clearly the same family--even their initials are the same. The names of all the other families are the same in both books. Why the change for this one? It can only be because this is the family that all the others believe to have some African-American ancestry. This was a big issue in the South in 1910, and it is obviously nearly as big an issue now. All the other surnames are of actual pioneer families of the Everglades: Daniels, Jenkins, Brown, Storter, Smallwood, etc. The clear inference is that today's Hamilton descendants objected to the author using their real names and thus labelling them as "passing for white" (whatever that means). It would be interesting to have Mr. Matthiessen confirm this, because it brings one of the book's significant themes into real-time focus.