River of the Brokenhearted

Chris Simmons is the reference librarian at Queen’s University in
Kingston.

The latest release from David Adams Richards inhabits familiar terrain:
the Miramichi river in New Brunswick and the towns along its banks that
are populated by characters and feuds carried over from the old country.
Their lives float alongside “a river of lumbering and fish and
forests” and sink into the depths of alcoholism. The novel is a search
for origins, an exploration of the unquiet “graves of the Drukens and
McLearys … spread across the Miramichi valley.” The search is
conducted by Wendell King, who looks to the past to “see how I was
damned.”

Richards has been compared to Faulkner because of his use of a
consistent setting (Yoknapatawpha County versus the Miramichi valley)
and the theme of a search for the causes behind a doomed family.
However, Faulkner’s experimental prose is absent in River of the
Brokenhearted. The book’s most engaging character is Janie (inspired
in part by the author’s own grandmother), an Irish Catholic who stands
out against the procession of drunks and despairing souls.

At times, the family’s doomed march through time becomes monotonous.
The strength of the novel is Richards’s talent for describing the
action and drama spawned by the narrative.