Customer Reviews

The Remains of River Names

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

 

 

This book has an honesty I find rare in short fiction today. There is a slowness and a sincerity to the writing that is admirable. The subject matter is not new, and yet the stories read with a surprising freshness. They are vivid and beautiful (and brutal). Briggs lacks the flash of many of his contemporaries, but he lacks nothing in the way of talent.

This wonderful book of linked stories is more like a novel because all the stories are about the same people, much like The Joy Luck Club or Slaves of New York. The author has a gift for writing from the point-of-view of characters of all ages, and I felt genuinely emotionally connected to their often-heartbreaking stories. The Remains of River Names is a moving and powerful book.

I wanted to like this book ... I liked the premise--what happens to (more or less) hippies after the movement has pretty much died out. I also like the WINESBURG, OHIO concept of linked short stories. But aside from being a bore without much of a plot, the writing is just too pretentious to stay with--starting with the title. In other words, Briggs looks like a writer trying to write. Here's an example: "Lying in the hot, loose soil in the middle of the pine forest I wished that I could just be one of the plants, fox-glove or a knot of yellow daisies." Here's a Hallmark card I just picked out: "Lying in the calm, green meadow, you feel yourself putting down roots into the moist soil, and the breeze weaves through your hair as though it were grass." Honestly, I think Hallmark did it slightly better. He just pushes too hard with the images and metaphors or this might have been decent writing. Nonetheless, I don't decent writing alone would have saved the weak narrative or the the lackluster characters.