Customer Reviews

The River, By Moonlight

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4 star:		(1)
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This was a great book. It's set in 1917 - New York. A vagrant sees the talented and lovely Miss Lily Canning jump off of a bridge into the Hudson River. Her family and friends are baffled by her decision and are left to grasp at straws, searching for answers. The looming war in Europe adds texture to the psychological tension built throughout the story.

The story is brilliantly told via different persons in Lily's sphere. Each chapter is narrated by a different character, who more or less picks up the narrative where the last character left off. In some hands, such a device might be distracting or annoying, but Marchetta managed to pull it off seamlessly. And, while I'm thinking about it, Marchetta's writing is seamless, too. It was realistic, and details about the period were sown in and communicated effortlessly. I was truly enthralled by this story as it unfolded page by page.

THE RIVER, BY MOONLIGHT by Camille Marchetta is a literary jewel set in 1917 New York with characters so clear you could pick them out of a crowd.

This story begins a little after six in the morning when Henrietta Canning gets a disturbing call from NYPD Detective Malone. A lady has drowned in the Hudson River and the police believe it's her twenty-five year old daughter, Lily. Once the identity is confirmed, the next concern for her family is whether this was an accident or suicide.

As the people she left behind come to terms with this loss, we get to know Lily and what it must have been like to walk in her shoes. It won't be until the last few pages that we understand completely what happened that fatal night at the Yacht Club.

Marchetta's book would make the perfect book club read!

It's April, 1917, America is on the verge of entering the war, women are clamoring for the vote, Picasso and others are revolutionizing art, the nation is full of hope and despair. Against this evocative backdrop, Camille Marchetta sets the story of Lily, who longs for independence and success as an artist yet cannot quite manage either. Told from the points of view of the key figures in Lily's short life, "The River, By Moonlight" will enchant its readers and keep you going to the last page.

This book appeals at so many levels. It is a gripping historical novel, with well-researched references to the art world of New York City around World War I. It is a mystery novel. It is a love story. It is a psychological study of a desperately troubled young woman. The author is a meticulous researcher and every historical reference, providing the story with texture, rings true. Beautifully written. This is a book you will not easily forget.

A compelling story and a wonderful piece of writing. The novel gets its power from the author's close observation of conflicting human emotions seen against a richly detailed portrait of New York City just before World War One. That tragedy looms over the characters sharpening their emotions, but the author never overplays her hand The true tragedy plays out in a long, heart-breaking andante near the end. Edith Wharton would have been proud to have written this moving story.

On the surface the story is simple: a young artist, Lily Canning, dies - her life story is told by the people who loved her. Set in the months before World War I in and around New York City, the times and places are vividly drawn and investigated. Both the War and the Modern Art movement are characters in this beautifully written novel, and we see the advent of both upset the values and dreams of a generation. The story is a woman's cry from the heart for freedom, recognition, and love told by a master storyteller.

A sensitive telling of a tale set early in the last century (at a time of upheaval in the art world, and the beginning of war), The River, By Moonlight (I do love that title) intrigues at the same time as it breaks your heart. Marchetta is one of my favorite authors, and the reasons are simple. She has a feel for a story and how it should be told that surpasses that of many writers, and equals the skill of some of the best. The beautifully drawn array of characters she creates (some inhabitants of a seemingly serene Hudson River town, others of a pulsating Manhattan) will stay with you long after you have turned the last page of the book. This is a writer whose sure hand and delicate touch can always be counted on.

Ms Marchetta hits one out of the ballpark with this psychological mystery.
The story behind the sheltered and now missing Lily, a young and innocent artist in the early 1900's on the brink of success,
reads like today's headlines. Ms Marchetta is a gifted writer, with the abilty to engage her readers
with flesh and blood characters caught up in a maelstrom of pain and confusion.
She brings the century where anything was possible, and the world had no end to it,to life.
"Haunting" " You will not forget Lily and all the people in her short life for a long time ".