The River, Peter Heller
The River, Peter Heller
6 Rating(s)
List: $17.50 | Sale: $12.25
Club: $8.75

The River
A novel

Author: Peter Heller

Narrator: Mark Deakins

Unabridged: 7 hr 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/05/2019


Synopsis

A Nominee for the 2020 Edgar Allan Poe Awards

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"A fiery tour de force… I could not put this book down. It truly was terrifying and unutterably beautiful." –Alison Borden, The Denver Post

From the best-selling author of The Dog Stars, the story of two college students on a wilderness canoe trip--a gripping tale of a friendship tested by fire, white water, and violence

Wynn and Jack have been best friends since freshman orientation, bonded by their shared love of mountains, books, and fishing. Wynn is a gentle giant, a Vermont kid never happier than when his feet are in the water. Jack is more rugged, raised on a ranch in Colorado where sleeping under the stars and cooking on a fire came as naturally to him as breathing. When they decide to canoe the Maskwa River in northern Canada, they anticipate long days of leisurely paddling and picking blueberries, and nights of stargazing and reading paperback Westerns. But a wildfire making its way across the forest adds unexpected urgency to the journey. When they hear a man and woman arguing on the fog-shrouded riverbank and decide to warn them about the fire, their search for the pair turns up nothing and no one. But: The next day a man appears on the river, paddling alone. Is this the man they heard? And, if he is, where is the woman? From this charged beginning, master storyteller Peter Heller unspools a headlong, heart-pounding story of desperate wilderness survival.

About Peter Heller

Peter Heller is a seasoned adventure journalist and a senior contributor to Outside magazine. Before tackling Tibet, he kayaked in the footsteps of Hemingway along the Cuban coastline, depicted in his exposé Cuba: A Dry Run. He is also the author of Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet's Tsangpo River and Set Free in China: Sojourns on the Edge. Peter lives in Denver, where he kayaks daily on a lake 100 yards from his front door.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jim on December 04, 2021

The book's subtitle is a little misleading. For me, this story is more of an expedition into difficult, dangerous, remote, mountainous terrain. Yes, the purpose of the expedition is to support kayakers making a first descent of the Tsangpo river. But that narrative takes only a small part of the boo......more

Goodreads review by Stephanie on May 02, 2019

I'm a huge fan of Peter Heller's fiction and have long been meaning to check out his nonfiction - but, clearly, this was a disappointment! The subtitle of this book is "surviving Tibet's Tsangpo River," but that's not entirely accurate - it makes it sound like Heller (an expert paddler in his own ri......more

Goodreads review by Nick on December 02, 2019

This was my first experience reading an Ebook through the screen of my phone. While this was a regrettable decision, Hell or High Water in itself was a fairly interesting story which helped me decide that intense river rafting is something that I'd never like to take part in. I am not sure why a gro......more

Goodreads review by Kyle on March 22, 2019

A solid exploration of a really remote part of the world. Affirmed my belief that river kayaking isn't my thing.......more

Goodreads review by Jason on July 24, 2011

This is one of the best books I've read in years!! I've read several books about the Tsangpo Gorge and it's rugged history, but this account went far beyond the others in its scope, harrowing detail, and the audacity of its attempt at conquering one of the most savage whitewater environments known t......more


Quotes

Edgar Allan Poe Award Nominee

"Utter joy... A suspenseful tale told with glorious drama and lyrical flair." 
—Denise Mina, The New York Times Book Review

"Urgent, visceral writing--I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. A beautiful, heartrending exploration of male friendship."
Clare Mackintosh, bestselling author of Let Me Lie

"[T]here is plenty of tension here, but where Heller really scores is the extraordinarily high quality of his writing about the natural world, which is lyrical and action-packed by turns."
Laura Wilson, The Guardian

"A fiery tour de force… [The River] recalls his debut, The Dog Stars, with its poetic, staccato sentences and masterfully crafted prose… And what a story he tells… I could not put this book down. It truly was terrifying and unutterably beautiful."
Alison Borden, The Denver Post

"[A] poetic and unnerving wilderness thriller… Full of rushing life and profound consequences. Every move Jack and Wynn make along the river has the chance to kill them or those they’re trying to save, and the result is a novel that sweeps you away, each page filled with wonder and awe for a natural world we can quantify with science but can rarely predict with emotion."
Tod Goldberg, USA Today
 
"Heller puts his knowledge of canoeing and currents to fascinating use. He has created indelible characters in Wynn and Jack, pals who are almost exact opposites: the former a bearish galoot who’s convinced that people are basically good, and the latter a pessimist who’s convinced that their only hope for salvation is to paddle as fast as they can."
Ross Gray, Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Another superbly crafted adventure-action-mystery story… Reminiscent of James Dickey’s classic Deliverance… The beat of Heller’s novel builds to a furious pace."
John Newlin, New York Journal of Books

"Engaging...satisfying... Terse and tight. Short, lyrical paragraphs are packed with action and keep the story moving along... Like a lot of backcountry missions, the most compelling parts of the story aren’t necessarily the rapids or the high-risk moves. Instead they’re the quiet moments where Wynn and Jack are coupling their rods together and wading slowly through vivid, tannic streams."
Heather Hansman, Outside Magazine

“It is a rare literary feat when an author is able to marry plot and prose with the soaring majesty that Heller achieves in The River.” 
Drew Gallagher, Fredericksburg Free Lance Star