Lost Mans River, Peter Matthiessen
Lost Mans River, Peter Matthiessen
List: $34.99 | Sale: $24.50
Club: $17.49

Lost Man's River

Author: Peter Matthiessen

Series: Watson #2

Narrator: George Guidall

Unabridged: 27 hr 8 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 03/05/2010


Synopsis

One of the few American writers ever nominated for the National Book Award for both fiction and nonfiction presents the second novel in his Watson trilogy.

Lucius Watson is obsessed with learning the truth about his father. Who was E. J. Watson? Was he a devoted family man, an inspired farmer, a man of progress and vision? Or was he a cold-blooded murderer and amoral opportunist? Were his neighbors driven to kill him out of fear? Or was it envy? And if Watson was a killer, should the neighbors fear the obsessed Lucius when he returns to live among them and ask questions?

The characters in this tale are men and women molded by the harsh elements of the Florida Everglades—an isolated breed, descendants of renegades and pioneers, who have only their grit, instinct, and tradition to wield against the obliterating forces of twentieth-century progress: Speck Daniels, moonshiner and alligator poacher turned gunrunner; Sally Brown, who struggles to escape the racism and shame of her local family; R. B. Collins, known as Chicken, crippled by drink and rage, who is the custodian of Watson secrets; Watson Dyer, the unacknowledged namesake with designs on the remote Watson homestead hidden in the wild rivers; and Henry Short, a black man and unwilling member of the group of armed island men who awaited E. J. Watson in the silent twilight.

Only a storyteller of Peter Matthiessen’s dazzling artistry could capture the beauty and strangeness of life on this lawless frontier while probing deeply into its underlying tragedy: the brutal destruction of the land in the name of progress, and the racism that infects the heart of New World history.

A story of epic scope and ambition, Lost Man’s River confronts the primal relationship between a dangerous father and his desperate sons and the ways in which his death has shaped their lives.

About Peter Matthiessen

Peter Matthiessen (1927–2014) was the author of more than thirty books, including the New York Times bestseller The Snow Leopard. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1974. He was cofounder of the Paris Review and won two National Book Awards, the 2000 Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities, and the 2010 Spiros Vergos Prize for Freedom of Expression.


Reviews

Goodreads review by David on October 31, 2016

My Grandmother passed this book on to me along with Killing Mister Watson the last time I saw her - it must nearly twenty years ago now. She always had an uncanny ability to find books for me, regardless of my stage of life. This was no mean feat, as although we spent considerable time together when......more

Goodreads review by Greg on September 30, 2009

When I travel I see some people in the subway or on a street and I think to myself that I would like to know more about them...where they live...what they like and dislike...and who they mingle with. This book is a fictional account of such meetings, except these are long lost family members from mu......more

Goodreads review by Hal on May 27, 2019

It is difficult to know how to rate this book. The writing is beautiful and Matthiessen tells a 540 page story mostly through authentic Southern dialogue. On the other hand, the author is maddingly self-indulgent: This story could have been told in half the number of pages and it would have been a b......more

Goodreads review by Kevin on May 06, 2022

4.5 ⭐️ Book 2 of the Shadow Country trilogy. This one from Lucius one of Watson’s young sons and told in the 3rd person of his life. This is the longest of the 3 books and from what I remember of Shadow Country (the re-worked, re-edited) single volume that came out in 2010 it is a lot. Way too long.......more

Goodreads review by Charlene on March 13, 2012

This is the second book of an amazing trilogy set in south Florida by an important American author -- the author was so deep into this story that he rewrote the trilogy into a one volume version, Shadow Country, which won the National Book Award in 2008. The first volume of this, Killing Mr. Watson......more