50
Used, New, and Out of Print Books - We Buy and Sell - Powell's Books
Cart |
|  my account  |  wish list  |  help   |  800-878-7323
Hello, | Login
MENU
  • Browse
    • New Arrivals
    • Bestsellers
    • Featured Preorders
    • Award Winners
    • Audio Books
    • See All Subjects
  • Used
  • Staff Picks
    • Staff Picks
    • Picks of the Month
    • Bookseller Displays
    • 50 Books for 50 Years
    • 25 Best 21st Century Sci-Fi & Fantasy
    • 25 PNW Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books From the 21st Century
    • 25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Women to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books to Read Before You Die
  • Gifts
    • Gift Cards & eGift Cards
    • Powell's Souvenirs
    • Journals and Notebooks
    • socks
    • Games
  • Sell Books
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Find A Store

PowellsBooks.Blog
Authors, readers, critics, media − and booksellers.

Review-a-Day

Literature of Place

by Review-a-Day, June 21, 2010 12:00 AM
The River GodsThe River Gods by Brian Kiteley

Reviewed by Andy Stewart

Rain Taxi

Brian Kiteley offers a distinctively intimate and haunting collection of narratives in his newest novel, The River Gods. He continues his exploration of the vignette story so unique and notable in his debut novel, Still Life With Insects, but effectively adds a new dimension to what has become an ever ubiquitous and often strained prose form. Kiteley proposes something completely different from his contemporaries in these well-crafted pages: a vignette novel that does not rely upon a tedious modus operandi to organize or thematically unify the collection into a cohesive whole. Instead, in a series of non-chronologic vignettes that span the breadth of almost 1000 years of American (and pre-American) history, The River Gods uses the subtle rhyme and reason of place to provide coherence. As a piece haunted both by place and history, it is place -- the novel's setting -- that connects Kiteley's rogue cast of characters, their histories, and their stories. Northampton, Massachusetts, and specifically the old banks of the Connecticut River, embodies the beating heart of this novel. It is the author's Eden, the fertile crescent, the epicenter for each of the novel's complicated and excruciatingly human characters.

Each brief vignette presents a first-person narrative penned in the style of a journal entry, complete with name, date, and occasionally a short note of subject or instance. The novel's characters reflect different genders, ages, social classes, and populate different moments in our continental history, giving voice to such famous names as Richard Nixon, Sojourner Truth, Calvin Coolidge, Jonathan Edwards, as well as film director Mike Nichols and literary figures William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens. Kiteley also includes an even longer list of characters hitherto unknown except in the dense annals of history: a soldier dying in the Egyptian desert in the midst of World War II (1942); two young lovers stealing away on a raft on the Connecticut River (1738); Cornet Joseph Parsons, husband to the accused witch, Mary Parsons (1678); and Henrik Rafn, one of the first of the Greenlandic explorers on the continent (1062). Each vignette maintains an unobtrusive authorial tone that runs as an undercurrent throughout each narrative, yet Kiteley manages to breathe a very distinct life and voice into each and every one of these first-person voices.

Time and death are not barriers for Kiteley's bevy of historical characters. They write about their lives with the relative objectivity of an autobiographical obituary. And it is here that Kiteley's mastery of storytelling best reveals itself. The writing in each vignette is both familiar and unique to the personality and time of the character. So convincing and organic are these confessional perspectives that one cannot help but wonder if these historical figures have possessed the author and hijacked his pen hand. Or perhaps it is Kiteley's uncanny ability to inhabit a different time, a different perspective, a different mental landscape -- to take himself out of himself -- that enables him to tell such stories. Whatever the method, Kiteley encompasses a rare and powerful brand of storytelling that provides the reader with a window into the quiet souls of his characters.

Another key element of The River Gods is that it presents a mystery in its very form and loose organization -- not one to be untangled via an unfolding plot, but a mystery of personal lineage, ancestry, and geography that gets revealed through self-examination and reflection. Kiteley truly puts something of himself in this novel. He invokes the voices of his family members as characters: his mother, Jean; his father, Murray; his grandfather, Eric, who is always armed with bug-collecting nets; his brother, Geoffrey, who is dying of AIDS. Kiteley even includes his own personal narrative from different points in his childhood and young adulthood. Self-examination happens via reenactment, through the rehashing of pivotal moments and memories in Kiteley's and his family's lives.

The River Gods poses a question that good literature often does: Where do I come from? Kiteley tries on several different hats in an attempt to answer this question, and to understand the history of the place in which he was raised. This sort of examination culminates in an irresistible and stunning piece of thought-provoking fiction. In his storytelling, he makes myths of them all -- presidents, murderers, passers by, brothers, grandfathers -- and, in the mythmaking, he imparts a deep respect. All characters exist as equals on the same lofty tier in this novel. They are, all of them, River Gods.




{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##

Most Read

  1. Best Books of 2022: Fiction by Powell's Staff
  2. The Big List of Backlist: Books That Got Us Through 2022 by Powell's Staff
  3. 25 Books to Read Before You Die: 21st Century by Powell's Staff
  4. Powell's 2023 Book Preview: The First Quarter by Powell's Staff
  5. 7 Essential Authors Recommend Their 7 Essential Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books by Powell's Staff

Blog Categories

  • Interviews
  • Original Essays
  • Lists
  • Q&As
  • Playlists
  • Portrait of a Bookseller
  • City of Readers
  • Required Reading
  • Powell's Picks Spotlight

Post a comment:

*Required Fields
Name*
Email*
  1. Please note:
  2. All comments require moderation by Powells.com staff.
  3. Comments submitted on weekends might take until Monday to appear.
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram

  • Help
  • Guarantee
  • My Account
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Security
  • Wish List
  • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Shipping
  • Transparency ACT MRF
  • Sitemap
  • © 2023 POWELLS.COM Terms