Black River - Softcover

Hulse, S. M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0544570235 ISBN 13: 9780544570238

Publisher: Mariner Books, 2016

Synopsis

An Indie Next Title · An Indies Introduce Title · Long-listed for the 2015 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

“Impressive . . . [A] tough, honest novel by a surprisingly wise young writer.” — Washington Post
 
“A complex and powerful story—put Black River on the must-read list.” — Seattle Times
 
Wes Carver returns to his hometown—Black River, Montana—with two things: his wife’s ashes and a letter from the parole board. The convict who once held him hostage during a prison riot is up for release. For years, Wes earned his living as a corrections officer and found his joy playing the fiddle. But the riot shook Wes’s faith and robbed him of his music; now he must decide if his attacker should walk free. With “lovely rhythms, spare language, tenderness, and flashes of rage” (Los Angeles Review of Books), S. M. Hulse shows us the heart and darkness of an American town, and one man’s struggle to find forgiveness in the wake of evil.
 
“Artful . . . Hulse evokes the Montana landscape in lyrical, vivid prose.” — Boston Globe
 
“Hulse believes that grace happens in a look between two people, or a moment of holding back. A powerful elegy.” — Guardian 

About this title

Review:

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, January 2015: Black River is a portrait of a man shaped by the unforgiving landscape of the west – its beauty and violence and the haunting memories that fill a life. Wesley Carver is a retired corrections officer who twenty years ago was kidnapped and viciously tortured in a prison riot. After living in Spokane for 18 years, he’s come back to his home in Black River, Montana to scatter his beloved wife’s ashes, and to attend the parole hearing for the man that tortured him, destroying his hands and taking away the one thing that made him complete: playing the fiddle. Hulse gracefully unfolds the story of Wes’s past: his fraught relationship with his step-son, his father’s lonely death, and his abled hands, which "made music for the moon and the stars.” By turns angry, grieving, violent, and compassionate, Wes wrestles to find his faith, hide his fear, and move on from the two things that he’s loved. Black River is a sure-footed and powerfully drawn debut. --Alexandra Woodworth

From the Back Cover:

An Indie Next Title · An Indies Introduce Title · Long-listed for the 2015 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
 
“A complex and powerful story—put Black River on the must-read list.” — Seattle Times
 
Wes Carver returns to his hometown—Black River, Montana—with two things: his wife’s ashes and a letter from the parole board. The convict who once held him hostage during a prison riot is up for release. For years, Wes earned his living as a corrections officer and found his joy playing the fiddle. But the riot shook Wes’s faith and robbed him of his music; now he must decide if his attacker should walk free. With “lovely rhythms, spare language, tenderness, and flashes of rage” (Los Angeles Review of Books), S. M. Hulse shows us the heart and darkness of an American town, and one man’s struggle to find forgiveness in the wake of evil.
 
“Artful . . . Hulse evokes the Montana landscape in lyrical, vivid prose.” — Boston Globe
 
“Hulse believes that grace happens in a look between two people, or a moment of holding back. A powerful elegy.” — Guardian

S. M. Hulse received her MFA from the University of Oregon and was a fiction fellow at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her stories have appeared in Willow Springs, Witness, and Salamander. A horsewoman and fiddler, she has spent time throughout the American West and lives in Spokane, Washington.

About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0544570235
• ISBN 13: 9780544570238
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240