The Names of Rivers - Hardcover

Buckman, Daniel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1888451297 ISBN 13: 9781888451290

Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd., 2002

Synopsis

A tightly crafted search for redemption and forgiveness within the shadows of a family’s military past, by the author of Water in Darkness.

“Let the word go out: There’s a new Hemingway loose in America. Buckman’s powers of observation are breathtaking, his lyricism continually puts a fresh face on the mundane things that usually pass unnoticed, and his prose rolls forward with a sure rhythm, concision and grace that make almost every paragraph a textbook model of how to write well.” ―San Francisco Chronicle

“Buckman displays a remarkably exacting touch with his lead characters and supporting cast . . . He scores with a bounty of themes touching fathers and sons, dark family secrets, revenge and redemption, tying it all up in a stunning but believable conclusion. Buckman is carving a niche for himself as an unblinking observer of the horrors of war, especially Vietnam. His second novel deserves to be widely reviewed.” ―Publishers Weekly

By the author of the critically acclaimed Water in Darkness, The Names of Rivers is a tightly crafted search for redemption and forgiveness within the shadows of a family’s military past. Set in a 1980s rustbelt town south of Chicago, the novel tells the story Bruno Konick, an aged veteran of “the good war” who has spent a lifetime haunted by his own actions during the liberation of Dachau Concentration Camp; and his grandson Luke, a teenage boy forever dreaming of heroism in a post-Vietnam America where ‘duty, honor, and country’ have become ‘don’t let the man get you’. Together, they watch Luke’s father Bruce, an unemployed factory worker badly disfigured during the siege of Khe Sanh, wander towards his suicidal end in a cornfield ruined by a freakish ice storm. When the youngest son Len unexpectedly returns home, recovered from the heroin addiction he learned as a hospital corpsman in Saigon, he brings with him an old wound that Bruno Konick can never let himself touch.

From a variety of perspectives, Buckman examines the complex relationships between fathers and sons, between men and history, weaving a cohesive novel rich in life’s substance. Where his prose echoes Hemingway’s extraordinary actuality, a constant reminder of the flesh’s terrible importance in human relations, his vision heeds Faulkner’s call for basic humanity amidst the pitiless and endless violence of twentieth-century history. A story of love and pain, of sin and forgiveness, The Names of Rivers enacts a drama rich in biblical tradition and sheer moral weight by asking the oldest of all questions: am I my brother’s keeper?

About this title

About the Author

DANIEL BUCKMAN was born in Rockford, IL in 1967. He served as a paratrooper with the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and attended the University of Illinois. He currently lives and works in Chicago. He is the author of Water in Darkness, Morning Dark, Because the Rain, and The Names of Rivers.

Reviews

Horrifying secrets hold a dysfunctional family together in Buckman's intensely written second novel, set in the small Midwest town where Bruno Konick, a guilt-ridden World War II veteran, is struggling to make sense of the choices that have essentially destroyed his two sons and now threaten to ruin his grandson. Bruno's son Bruce, battling the external fury of combat and the internal storm of his lust for another soldier, exploded a grenade in his foxhole in Vietnam, maiming himself. Now a hopeless drunk, he roams the town, buying beer with money stolen from his father. Bruno's other son, Len, also a Vietnam vet, shoots heroin, visits prostitutes and fights the memory of a childhood sexual assault by his brother. Len is glad that Bruce was disfigured in the war: he sees it as a sort of divine retribution, but he can neither understand why his brother can never seek his forgiveness, nor why his father refuses to face what happened. Bruno chooses to ignore the pain and suffering around him, closing off his small, tortured life until he must confront Bruce's grisly death and the prospect of his grandson, Luke, joining the marines to relive the imagined glory days of his elders. Buckman (Water in Darkness) displays a remarkably exacting touch with his lead characters and supporting cast, guiding the reader through a tangle of misery and chaos with his surefooted storytelling skills. He scores with a bounty of themes touching fathers and sons, dark family secrets, revenge and redemption, tying it all up in a stunning but believable conclusion.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Three generations of Konick men struggle to come to terms with past wrongs, personal devils, and long-festering grievances in a dark novel fraught with old war memories (World War II and Vietnam), alcoholism, drug addiction, rape, and years of anger between fathers and sons. Only teenaged Luke seems to rise above the hurt that eats away at the core of his dysfunctional family, but even he reverts to familiar responses under family and social pressure. Buckman (Water in Darkness) has chosen central Illinois and Chicago for the setting of his second novel and employs much of the naturalistic style James T. Farrell used in his "Studs Lonigan" trilogy, also set in Chicago. However, he pushes realism beyond the bounds that Farrell set for himself, creating a haunting novel of family hurt and retribution that is beautiful in style and execution but cheerless in its hopelessness and melancholy. Recommended for strong literary collections in college and larger public libraries. - Thomas L. Kilpatrick, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This is the story of three generations of men ravaged by war and each other. World War II vet Bruno Konick fought from North Africa through Europe, and his unit liberated Dachau. What he saw--and what he did--marked him for life, and marked his son and grandson as well. Bruno's son, Bruce, went off to Vietnam and returned horribly disfigured, becoming a drunken, brawling, small-town lowlife. Despite the family influences, Bruce's son, Luke, wants to join the marines and become a hero. This is as unremittingly bleak a novel as you will ever read. The pain the protagonists suffer is all turned inward, manifesting itself in cruelty toward each other and nearly everyone else they encounter. Like the Konicks, even the setting, a failing rust-belt town south of Chicago, is devoid of any kind of beauty, yet the author has rendered this void in austerely beautiful prose. An elliptical, memorable read. Thomas Gaughan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd.
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1888451297
• ISBN 13: 9781888451290
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 270