The River – Peter Heller
Without even having to read the biographical information, you can tell that Peter Heller has experience of outdoor activities: climbing, canoeing, fishing, camping, surviving in the wilds. It’s not just that a love for nature that comes through in the writing, but an understanding of its rhythms, a respect for its power, its danger. That was evident in his most successful book to date The Dog Stars , a wonderfully refreshing humanist addition to the otherwise quite pessimistic post-apocalypse genre, focussing as it did on a Hemingway-esque exploration of man and nature, people in their surroundings, surviving, alert to danger; danger coming most often from other people. You get a sense of similar unease very quickly in Heller’s latest book, The River . Two friends, Jack and Wynn are on a canoeing trip along a Canadian river through a series of lakes that takes them out into Hudson Bay. The two young men share a love for the outdoor life, for self-sufficiency, but perhaps also because o...