Hansie said, “She called us. She was at Brigham and Women’s. We talked for an hour.”
Jack looked up sharply. Of course she did. He was the only one who hadn’t. Hadn’t come across. Because in his heart he was still on the river. Right then he realized that was why. He was still on the river with Wynn and they were still paddling and they were still arguing about how much slack they should give the man, everyone. They were still fishing a tea-colored creek with watergrass in the bottom, wading up the stream, separated by a few yards. Wynn was making sculptures of rock and feathers on the shore. Thingamajigs. And reading to him from a book of ghost stories by the fire. This was Wynn’s mother and sister, they were trying to move on. He wasn’t.
“Gimme a minute,” he said. “Please.” He stood. He went out into the windy dark that smelled sweet of decaying leaves and stood on the little deck and packed his pipe and lit it. In a minute he would go back in. He would tell them whatever else they wanted to know.
But he wouldn’t tell them how a Cree deputy had met him at the airport in Churchill and driven him to the Aurora Hotel. How he hadn’t gone in. That he’d turned around and walked up Bernier Street past the ramshackle houses and rusted Ski-Doos and down to the shore. The tide was out, and he walked past the wreck of an outboard motorboat half buried in the sand and he walked straight out onto the tidal flat. He’d seen the polar bear warning signs and knew the bears stalked the shore this time of year but he didn’t care.
How he’d walked twenty yards to open water and kept walking into the shallows until it was near the top of his boots. He pulled Wynn’s canoe from his pocket and set it in the water. It windcocked into the onshore wind and faced the open sea of Hudson Bay. Good. “Good, Wynn,” he whispered. “You carved it true. Of course you did.” How he pushed the little boat toward open water. But the tide was slack and the wind kept knocking the canoe back into his legs. It wouldn’t go. “Hey, hey,” he whispered. “It’s okay, it’s okay, you can go now. Please.” It was almost desperate. How the boat turned sideways against the top of his boot and rested there. He stood in the shallows against the small waves and didn’t move. He looked out into the bay where the line of the horizon was gray against gray. Sky and sea the same. A skein of geese. He closed his eyes. He smelled salt. He heard the rapid plaint of a gull. And then he picked up the canoe and held it in his hand and walked back into town.
Acknowledgments
Many people lent their energy and wisdom to the making of this book. To my first readers, Kim Yan, Lisa Jones, Helen Thorpe, Donna Gershten, Jay Heinrichs, and Mark Lough, I am deeply grateful. Your passion and ready insights were essential, as always. These books would not live without you.
Thanks to Jad Davenport for deep knowledge of the country and for sharing with me a crucial history. And to Jason Hicks, Steve Schon, Bobby Reedy, Mike Reedy, Billy Nutt, Cedar Farwell, Jay Mead, Silas Farwell, Sascha Steinway, Lyn Bixby, Mark Young, John French, Geordie Heller, and Becky Arnold, for their expertise. And to Kate Whalen for fuel. Lamar Simms provided invaluable help in understanding the law. And for all things medical, doctors Melissa Brannon and Mitchell Gershten were indispensable. Thanks to firefighter Jim Mason for relating in great detail the characteristics and awesome power of fire and to Marilee Rippy for introducing us. To Shawn Manzanares and Angela Lewark I am always grateful.
Thanks to my old friend Creigh Moffatt for telling me about her father’s expedition up on the Dubawnt River and to Skip Pessl for sharing more of the story. Many years ago Peggy Keith and her daughter, Margaret Keith-Sagal, hosted a dinner in New Hampshire that provided the germ of this novel. Thanks for that evening and for so many others.
Thank you to the people of Peawanuk for your hospitality after a long river trip, to Kim for paddling with me, and to Lynn Cox, and Matt, and Jerry.
And thank you to the ones who ran the rivers, my paddling partners over the years, who shared with me the wildest and most beautiful country and who always had my back. This book is especially for you. Landis Arnold, Sascha Steinway, Andy Arnold, Roy Bailey, Newton Logan, Rafael Gallo, Adam Duerk, Peter Weingarten, Paul Bozuwa, Harold Schoeffler, Willy Kistler, John Mattson, John Jaycox, Dan Johnson, Chuck Behrensmeyer, Jay Mead, Billy Nutt—you are my brothers, always.
This book would not have been written without the encouragement and guidance of my extraordinary agent, David Halpern, and my brilliant editor, Jenny Jackson. You were both there from the first sentence, and to you both I raise a glass.
It is an honor and a privilege to know you all.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter Heller is the national best-selling author of Celine, The Painter, and The Dog Stars. The Painter was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and won the prestigious Reading the West Book Award, and The Dog Stars, which was published to critical acclaim and lauded as a breakout best seller, has been published in twenty-two languages to date. Heller is also the author of four nonfiction books, including Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave, which was awarded the National Outdoor Book Award for Literature. He holds an MFA in poetry and fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and he lives in Denver, Colorado.
An A. A. Knopf Reading Group Guide
The River by Peter Heller
The questions, discussion topics, and reading list that follow are intended to enhance your reading group’s conversation about The River, the searing new novel from Peter Heller, best-selling author of The Dog Stars.
Explore the early days of Jack and Wynn’s friendship. What brought them together? What does each young man admire about the other?
Examine Jack’s mother’s death. How old was he when she died, and how does he understand his own role in her death? To what extent has he processed his grief? How does our knowledge of this part of Jack’s history deepen our understanding of his character?
Discuss Jack’s sole trip back to the Encampment. How many years had passed since his mother had died there? How did he spend his time on this visit? Why do you think he chose not to tell his father?
Consider Jack and Wynn’s decision to go back up the river to look for Maia. Whose initial idea is it, and why is the choice ultimately made in spite of what the two men know about the threat of the fire?
Compare and contrast Jack and Wynn’s responses to danger. As you answer this question, consider the fire, Pierre, Maia’s injuries, and JD and Brent. To what do you attribute their different response styles? Whose approach to these dangerous situations do you consider to be more appropriate? Why?
Explore Wynn’s relationship with his sister, Jess. How does observing Wynn interact with his sister help Jack understand his friend’s worldview?
What does the ordeal teach these two young men about one another, their friendship, and themselves? How does their friendship evolve over the course of their journey?
Examine the role that nature plays in the novel. What is it about nature that is so appealing to both Jack and Wynn? Does their understanding of their place in nature change as the novel progresses?
Discuss the theme of luck as it is depicted in the novel. Would you characterize Jack and Wynn as lucky? Why or why not?
How would you characterize Jack’s sense of justice? What type of behavior, in Jack’s eyes, is unforgivable? How does he respond to the unethical behavior of others? Do he and Wynn see eye to eye, ethically?
On this page, Heller writes of Jack, “Everybody he loved most, he killed. One way or another. Hubris killed them—his own. Always.” Why does Jack feel at fault in both his mother’s and Wynn’s deaths? Do you feel that Jack is being fair to himself? Why or why not?