top of page

The River is Waiting

Writer's picture: Greg BarlinGreg Barlin

by Wally Lamb ★★★☆☆

cover art for In the Lives of Puppets

Corby Ledbetter is in a rut. He's been out of work for a year, and after passionately looking for work after he was laid off, the rejections are piling up and taking a toll on his motivation. He spends his days caring for his twin two-year-olds, Niko and Maisie, while his wife Emily teaches and supports the family financially. The depression associated with his inability to find work has led him to increase his use of his prescribed Ativan, and he's started supplementing that with some secretive day drinking. Then tragedy strikes the young family, and Corby finds himself headed to prison for a 3-year sentence, where the majority of the novel takes place.


There are elements that will feel familiar in The River Is Waiting for readers who have enjoyed author Wally Lamb's other work, and in many ways this feels like a compendium of his favorite topics. For starters, he brings back Dr. Rubina Patel, who played such a pivotal role in I Know This Much Is True, for an encore (but more limited) performance in this one. He again digs into the Wequonnoc Indians and their mistreatment by settlers and the government, in more depth this time. He focuses on the prison system, of course, which followers of Lamb know is close to his heart, given his decades working with the women incarcerated at York Correctional Institution, and uses the setting to sprinkle in a good amount of righteous outrage from Corby on the inequities of the U.S. judicial system.


I count I Know This Much Is True as among my all-time favorite novels, and so perhaps my expectations were too high for The River Is Waiting. There were moments in the book—especially the buildup and immediate aftermath of the aforementioned tragedy—that had me captivated and reading late into the evening. I thought Lamb did a great job establishing the foundation of Corby's and Emily's relationship, which is essential to the rest of the story. Corby's time in prison was less compelling, especially considering Lamb's familiarity with the subject, but perhaps his close understanding of the realities of prison life caused him to write a less sensational version of what we see in movies or on television. Even as it began to waver a bit, I still expected the book was probably going to end up as a 4-star novel for me. Then I got to the end.


Lamb's ham-fisted handling of the conclusion really tanked this one for me. The combination of events, the manner in which those events are communicated to the reader, and the characters' dialogue and reactions to them was, frankly, ruinous for the novel. It's difficult to review without spoiling, but suffice it to say that I was left wholly disappointed with the author's choices and execution, even down to the final sentence. I was frustrated and angry that so much promise had been squandered. It was doubly shocking given much of my love for I Know This Much Is True is attributable to its just-right finish. How could the same writer create a conclusion so precisely perfect in one book and miss so badly in this one? I felt like Adam Sandler as Billy Madison screaming "You blew it!" as I turned the final page.


There are other smaller problems I had with the book—I saw one reviewer call it "completely soulless", and while I think that overstates it, there were too many human interactions that just felt "off" sprinkled throughout from an author who normally nails those. But those smaller nits pale in comparison to the choices with the conclusion, and I'm surprised there aren't more early readers turned off in the same way I was. Ultimately, I was disappointed.



10 views0 comments

Related Posts

See All

Foster

Sandwich

Comments


Submission received!

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
bottom of page