The River Warren [Hardcover]

Kent Meyers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2000

When a trucker crashes a semitrailer of someone else's cattle in downtown Cloten, killing himself and his wife in the process, he unleashes the entire town's gossip, half-truths, and memories. Narrated by seven different characters, this poignant and lyrical story introduces a remarkable new voice in American fiction.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The River Warren begins with a resounding crash, as a packed tractor-trailer plows through a hardware store, killing all the cattle aboard as well as the driver, Two-Speed Crandall, and his wife, LouAnn. The accident--or lack thereof--sends the little farming town of Cloten into a veritable orgy of speculation: "The talk goes around and around about Two-Speed Crandall, but the talk's all about something else, like a whirlpool still in its center and everything going around it," says Angel Finn, owner of the hardware store. "It's like Two-Speed, now that he's dead, and dead's about as still as you can get, he's drawn other stories to him, and they're all whirling around, and people're trying to see it all." A drunk, idler, and notable eccentric, hated and feared by the town as well as his sensitive son, Luke, Two-Speed Crandall is the still place at this dreamlike novel's center, drawing stories to him as inexorably as swirling water. Before the novel is over, Luke and his best friend, Jeff Gruber, uncover the secret of their families' tangled histories, while the rest of the town rehashes old rumors, gossip, and slights both real and imagined. Told by seven distinct voices, in prose that is by turns lyrical and down to earth, this ambitious and powerful debut novel never quite solves the mystery that was Two-Speed Crandall--but it goes straight to the heart of what makes small towns tick.

From Publishers Weekly

A bizarre and perhaps malicious incident in a small Midwestern farm town is the focal point of this skillful and sensitive first novel. When Two-Speed Crandall careens down a hill and crashes a semi-trailer loaded with Leo Gruber's cattle into the bank, the barbershop and the hardware store, he kills himself and his wife, who was in the passenger seat. The townspeople are suspicious: was the accident suicide and/or Two-Speed's way of punishing his wife, who was finally ready to leave him? Like the river that runs through the town and that serves as a metaphor for time and memory, the nine characters who narrate this novel determine its shape and direction. Ably differentiating their voices, Meyers presents various versions of the events that led up to the accident. The narrators include a bystander who witnesses the wild ride, the town doctor, a wise old fisherman and six other players in the drama, chief among them Crandall's son, Luke, and Gruber's son, Jeff, who are friends even though their fathers barely tolerated each other. Through the interweaving of secrets and memories, we come to the closest possible understanding of why the crash happened. Along the way, the relationship of Luke and Jeff assumes its own importance. While the frequent switches in point of view are a bit frustrating until readers have a larger sense of the story, there is a cumulative rise in tension as the background becomes clear. Meyers's best accomplishment here may be the devastatingly beautiful passages on the death of Jeff's younger brother, Chris, from the viewpoints of Jeff and his mother. Here Meyers hones his sometimes fevered prose and achieves a simplicity of expression that conveys the arc of grief and acceptance. Editor, Dallas Crow. (Sept.) FYI: A collection of Meyers's essays, The Witness of Combines, is coming in September from the U. of Minnesota Press.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: Ruminator Books; First Edition edition (September 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1886913234
• ISBN-13: 978-1886913233
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #212,468 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A small town tries to comprehend a bizarre act, December 4, 2001

By 

S. A. Farley "sally1590" (Minnesota, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The River Warren (Hardcover)

Using the voice of various citizens of a small Minnesota town, Kent Meyers tells the story behind a tragic act.

Two-Speed Crandall crashes his semi through town, killing himself and his doomed wife and cutting a pointed path of destruction. Though no one in town claims to really know Two-Speed (even his own son), they fumble with their collective knowledge of this man and his past behavior in attempt to understand his final act.

The reader begins the book hoping to learn more about Two-Speed Crandall's life, but instead, we are shown the inner-workings of a small community and how intertwined their lives are. Each voice is distinct and each character well-defined through his/her own thoughts as relayed to the reader.

What's so fantastic about this book is how the author nails each character, makes them unique, quirky, yet solid. In the end, there are no unanswered questions, just acceptance.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting, wonderfully written novel, June 18, 2000

By 

M. Desoer (Bay Area, California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The River Warren: A Novel (Paperback)

When Two-Speed Crandall crashes his pick-up in the middle of town, killing himself, his wife, and a load of cattle, his surviving family and townspeople speculate as to whether the crash was voluntary, and what led up to it.

This story is told through various persons' thoughts and observations: family members, the only person who witnessed the crash, the local gossip, and others. Each one has separate pieces to the puzzle, so the book made me think of the old story about three blind men trying to describe an elephant, each feeling a totally different part.

The writing is brilliant. You feel like you "know" each of the narrators. At the same time, these differing perspectives result in the development of complex characters. For example, Two-Speed, who generally is a jerk to most people, at the same time secretly befriends a local mentally retarded man in a truly kind way.

The writing also was so clear that I vividly "saw" the town of Cloten, the fields, the river and the events as they unfolded.

I understand that this is the author's first novel, and hope that there are more to come.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The River Warren is a unique literary approach, November 23, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Muskegon, Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The River Warren (Hardcover)

The novel is certainly worth one's time. Told from the point-of-view of its characters, in several short snippets, each person is defined by the stories he/she tells. A small community attempts to come to terms with a bizzare incident, but its biggest obstacles as a community are in overcoming the prejudices of its people and its mindset. The novel is set in an interesting, rural backdrop, and is perfect as the microcosm for small-town U.S.A. Description is good, and though action (other than the prefatory accident that sets the story in motion) is minimal, the author still pulls off a stirring and very effective story. I would highly recommend this novel to all serious readers of mainstream or literary fiction, and especially to those practicing their craft as writers. It's a wonderful model.