After River

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Until she was 15, Natalie Ward believed her world was perfect and that her family would always be together on the small dairy farm carved out of a remote mountain valley in Southern British Columbia. Then came River, the American draft dodger who became her family’s hired hand the summer that a new highway opened the valley to the larger world beyond. But thirty-five years after River’s arrival, the Ward family is shattered. With her mother dying, Natalie must return to the home she has spent her entire adult life running from, as the family’s dark secrets and betrayals threaten to scar a new generation. Evoking Mary Lawson’s Crow Lake and Carol Shields’ Unless, Milner renders characters who are achingly human and plots a story with masterful precision. After River eloquently captures the moral and social upheavals of the late ’60s and marks the emergence of a dazzling Canadian talent.From Publishers WeeklyIn this debut from Canadian Milner, a nostalgia as "rich and sweet as... freshly churned butter" belies the lingering bitterness of family tragedy. Natalie Ward is a thrice-married writer forced by the imminent death of her mother to return to the town she left in shame at the age of 16. She recounts her golden childhood growing up on a busy farm "carved out of a narrow mountain valley deep in the Cascade Mountains." But when a handsome Vietnam War resister named River Jordon ambles up the family's dirt road in 1966 and offers his services as a farm hand, this innocent simplicity begins to curdle. The Ward family quickly falls in love with River, each finding some essential need filled by his gentle personality, but these bonds drag the family deep into tragedy. The frequent evocation of long-past shocking events is used to drive this story, but when those events are finally revealed they seem slightly artificial, and the author relies on clichéd notions of "the healing balm of letting go" to imply that in the end, though "life is messy... it all comes out in the wash." Despite these oversimplifications, this novel's solidly crafted settings and characters, blended with optimism, make it a charming if sometimes over-sugary read. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From School Library JournalAdult/High School—This novel with multiple voices chronicles different points in a woman's life. The main narrative follows Natalie Ward, who leads a charmed life in Prince George, BC, during the 1960s. It is only a matter of time before reality interferes with the idyllic. The political uncertainty of the era comes knocking on her family's door in the form of a draft resister, Richard "River" Jordan. His resistance to the war in Vietnam causes tension on the Ward homestead. The plot moves somewhat predictably through Natalie's relationship with him, as well as her changing relationships with her brothers and parents as she moves toward adulthood. What begins as a vivid picture of the turbulence of the period devolves somewhat into a problem novel with a historical backdrop. The consequences of war, homosexuality, and early promiscuity are explored through Natalie's eyes, but the details seem almost trite. Teens might enjoy the depiction of Natalie's early life in the 1960s, but they may be turned off by other narrative threads, especially that of the adult Natalie, now grown and alienated from some of her family, dealing with her dying mother's illness. Milner's novel will appeal to teens who have raided their parents' shelves for psychological, plot-driven fiction by writers such as Sue Miller or Anita Shreve.—Caitlin Fralick, Ottawa Public Library, ON Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.