Authors: David Adams Richards

River of the Brokenhearted

Acclaim for David Adams Richards’
RIVER OF THE BROKENHEARTED

“If there’s literary justice in this world,
River
ought to be a notable commercial success. Richards merits the kind of plaudits that were frequently lavished on [Robertson] Davies.… As a pure storyteller, Richards has it all over … just about every male writer in this country.… His comedy is so deeply rooted in an absurdist’s delight in the illogicality of thinking processes raddled by alcohol and drugs or addled by greed and vengeance.…
River of the Brokenhearted
delivers a highly readable study in kinds of damnation that are as common in the towers of Bay Street as on the banks of the Miramichi.”

—The Globe and Mail

“
River of the Brokenhearted
is one of the most ambitious of Richards’ novels.… [It] evokes pity and fear—the fate of these characters is not so different from our own—to a degree rarely seen in our literature.”

—Toronto Star

“Richards’s gift is to make these people human in their resiliency and fragility and to transform them from the pitiable to the iconic … by the moral force of his vision, the absolute sincerity of his voice and his uncanny ability to internalize the rough majesty of the Miramichi.… His mode is tragedy, but there is humour—even if blackly satirical—sneaking out of the shadows.”

—
Times & Transcript
(Moncton)

“
River of the Brokenhearted
has the robust feeling of a Shakespeare play.”

—
The Vancouver Sun

“Brilliant.… Is it worth it, diving into Richards’s river of misery …? A thousand times yes. And once you’re in, you’re in until it spits you up on to dry land, for like all great literature, it has everything about life you need or want to know and you must ride to the end, to make sure you get every drop of what this astonishing writer has to offer.… A great gift to English literature.”

—
The Daily News
(Halifax)

“There is a dark, sly current of humour in Richards’ work, the humour of the downtrodden and the unbelievably unlucky, and that washes over
River of the Brokenhearted
, the latest addition to the author’s distinguished Atlantic oeuvre.… It’s hard to believe that a single imagination can produce characters as large as these, but it has been done here.”

—The Hamilton Spectator

“River of the Brokenhearted
is a wonderful, sad novel that reflects our capacity for strength, loyalty and forgiveness. With its strong sense of justice, this book is also a testament to the power of faith—in all its many forms.”

—
Edmonton Journal

“Richards is a remarkably mature writer, whose confident, compassionate narrative voice makes fine fiction of the tragic randomness of human life.”

—
The London Free Press
(ON)

“Richards [is] a Maritime Dickens.”

—
Toronto Star

“David Adams Richards has become Canada’s contemporary master of the novel.… Intricately plotted,
River of the Brokenhearted
must be read slowly so that every clue and character can be understood.… Richards’ prose is something to linger over, to enjoy in slow motion.”

—The Sun Times
(Owen Sound)

ALSO BY DAVID ADAMS RICHARDS

Fiction
The Coming of Winter
Blood Ties
Dancers at Night: Stories
Lives of Short Duration
Road to the Stilt House
Nights Below Station Street
Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace
For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down
Hope in the Desperate Hour
The Bay of Love and Sorrows
Mercy Among the Children

Non-Fiction
Hockey Dreams
Lines on the Water

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

Anchor Canada and colophon are trademarks.

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Richards, David Adams, 1950-

River of the brokenhearted / David Adams Richards.

eISBN: 978-0-307-37509-4

I. Title.

PS8585.I17R48 2004 C813′.54 C2004-900584-7

This is a work of fiction; the characters and settings found within are imaginary composites and do not refer to actual persons or places
.

Published in Canada by
Anchor Canada, a division of
Random House of Canada Limited

Visit Random House of Canada Limited’s website:
www.randomhouse.ca

v3.1

For my cousins Mary Baldasaro
and Cathy Richards Green
who know that though this is based
on incidents in the life of our grandmother
Janie, it is a work of fiction
.

And for Bob Gibbs and Fred Cogswell
.

Contents

Cover

Other Books by This Author