Only the River, Anne Raeff
Only the River, Anne Raeff
1 Rating(s)
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Only the River

Author: Anne Raeff

Narrator: Cynthia Farrell

Unabridged: 9 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/05/2020

Synopsis

Fleeing the ravages of wartime Vienna, Pepa and her family find safe harbor in the small town of El Castillo, on the banks of the San Juan River in Nicaragua. There, her parents seek to eradicate yellow fever while Pepa falls under the spell of the jungle and the towns eccentric inhabitants. But Pepas lifeincluding her relationship with local boy Guillermocomes to a halt when her family abruptly moves to New York, leaving the young girl disoriented and heartbroken.As the years pass, Pepas and Guillermos lives diverge, and Guillermos homeland slips into chaos. Nicaragua soon becomes engulfed in revolutionary fervor as the Sandinista movement vies for the nations soul. Guillermos daughter transforms into an accidental revolutionary. Pepas son defies his parents wishes and joins the revolution in Nicaragua, only to disappear into the jungle. It will take decades before the fates of these two families converge again, revealing how love, grief, and passion are intertwined with a nations destiny.Spanning generations and several wars, Only the River explores the way displacement both destroys two families and creates new ones, sparking a revolution that changes their lives in the most unexpected ways.

About Anne Raeff

Anne Raeff is a bestselling author who has received numerous awards, including the 2015 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and the California Book Award’s Silver Medal in Fiction. Her stories and essays have appeared in New England Review, ZYZZYVA, and Guernica, among other places. A child of immigrants, she draws on her family's history as refugees from war and the Holocaust in much of her writing. She currently resides with her wife and two cats in San Francisco.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Angela M is taking a break.

This is a powerful, multi generational story of two families, spanning three continents and two wars. When the novel opens, we meet Pepa who at eighty five has not been able to fully divulge her past to her children or to her husband before he died. She has not been able to bring herself to go to Ni......more

Goodreads review by Addie BookCrazyBlogger

I waded into this story a little apprehensive but by the time I got 60 pages in, I was hooked. It’s a multigenerational novel about a Jewish family escaping the Nazi’s by living in Nicaragua first, then New York City. Pepa and her family move to Nicaragua, intent on delivering and facilitating the y......more

Goodreads review by Rachel

Rounded down to 2.5. Only the River has a bit of magical realism to it mostly in the tone of the work rather than events. People appear and disappear. The themes of the novel are refugees and their children. There is an intense longing for belonging and home but once the bond has been broken the child......more

Goodreads review by Sarah

A hypnotic, insightful, vivid story of love, family, war, and betrayal. Members of two intertwined families—including a pair of doctors, refugees from Europe who emigrate to Nicaragua and then to New York with their children—form and break relationships. There are love stories here, across the gener......more

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