River of Heaven

Another truly outstanding book from Lee Martin. I loved River of Heaven, and I think it's because his characters, once again, are so wonderfully complex but still seem completely real. Also, I noticed that, again, Martin masterfully repeats a single phrase, a refrain if you will, to keep the emotional back story present in the reader's head at all times--in this book, it's two of the main characters who say, "You asleep?" to anyone who does something out of the ordinary, a shorthand comment cultivated from their childhood that constantly reminds the reader of their troubled past. I am beginning to believe that Lee Martin is one of the best writers of our time. I would recommend this book and his last--The Bright Forever--to everyone

I became a big fan of Lee Martin after reading his novel, The Bright Forever. I have anxiously awaited his follow-up work and River of Heaven did not disappoint. Simply put, Martin is a master storyteller. His characters come alive in their imperfection. Throughout this touching story, I felt Sammy's joy and his pain. As an avid, but somewhat picky reader, that is rare and truly enjoyable experience. Few writers could tell this solitary man's story without it becoming depressing, but Martin does just that. His simple prose and perfect details tell just what we need to know and nothing more. River of Heaven is a story you'll think about long after you have finished it. Personally, I don't think about the story itself as much as I wonder what Sam, Maddie, Vera and Duncan Hines are up to these days. That, to me, is good storytelling - characters that live on after the book has been finished and shelved or shared. I cannot give this novel, or anything by Lee Martin a high enough recommendation.

I finished "River of Heaven" yesterday in one sitting, and felt lucky to have finally found a book that felt like a slice of my Midwest. As a Midwesterner who thinks the region has SO much to offer literature, I am often frustrated by the polar opposite portrayals of the region even in celebrated works of fiction. The Midwest is either a freakshow fit for Jerry Springer or a bucolic, cow-filled backdrop. The reality, of course, is infinitely more complex, and I felt a sense of relief that a writer had finally captured it for me. What I love about this book is that it does embrace the Jerry Springer moments in its characters' lives, but it refuses to make of those moments or those characters a freakshow of two-dimensional worst-case-scenarios. Instead, Martin develops characters who make choices, who have complex motivations, nagging doubts, and old wounds. Martin knows how to write the lovely, complicated, intelligent, freakish and self-aware Midwest, the Midwest that keeps secrets and that remembers.

Sam Brady has hidden from life and merely observed the passing of the world. The world and his past are about to come find him. All because of a silly doghouse. Sam's only real companions in recent memory have been his succession of dogs. Sam decides to build Stump, his current hound, a doghouse that looks like a ship. Arthur, his widowed neighbor and an ex-Navy man, feels the need to contribute his expertise. Soon the two are almost friends. Enter Duncan Hines, a newspaper reporter who does a human interest story on Stump's ship. Duncan mentions that he's a relative of Dewey Finn. Dewey Finn who died on the railroad tracks in 1955. Dewey Finn, the only person in the world, besides his brother Cal, that Sam ever really felt close too. Just the mention of that name sets Sam's present on a collision course with his past. The more actively Sam participates in his present, the closer the past comes. Between the appearance of Arthur's granddaughter and the reemergence of old acquaintances, life won't seem to let Sam slip away unnoticed anymore. When Cal returns for the first time in a very long time, it becomes inevitable that the truth will have to come out about that long-ago day. Truths from then and now will have to be faced, before they destroy everyone. Sam's often meandering tale comes out in bits and pieces. The past and the present are woven together in a beautiful way-a way that keeps you curious and anticipating, while easing you into a complete understanding of Sam Brady. By the end of the novel, Sam's pain, his loss, his torture, and even his hope are all very real. This is a simple, sweet, tragic story of how hiding from life doesn't keep you safe, and the evils of the past don't always like to stay there. It broke my heart and made me smile. Armchair Interviews says: That's high praise for a good storyteller.

In River of Heaven, author Lee Martin visits a boatload of trouble upon Sam Brady, the focal character: 1. The weight of a childhood secret 2. A lonely life as a closeted homosexual in a small, Midwestern town 3. A scheming brother who is vaguely associated with domestic terrorists and their plan to take down the Sears Tower In lesser hands these threads would unravel, but Martin gives us a novel that's tightly plotted--every twist both surprising and inevitable given what we know of the characters and their desires and disappointments. Yes Sam's story is sweeping and out of proportion to his seemingly quiet and unassuming life. But Martin, like his narrator Sam, knows that it's usually the small things--a dropped penny here, a newspaper photo there--that lead to trouble writ large. Martin's sentences are as beautiful as his plot is well-crafted (e.g. "Times like these, I try harder than ever to believe there's a kinder world going on somewhere else beyond this one, and, if there really is, we'll all find it one day."). His mastery of small town (and 1950s) vernacular is worth the price of the book. And, even amid such high drama, his characters are just as flawed and feeble as, in Sam's words, "the crumbled up folks we are when we're alone with ourselves." All told, River of Heaven is the best boys-on-railroad-tracks fiction since Stephen King's novella, The Body. Buy this book.