![]() Initially it reads as slightly puritanical - drunks are bad, fat people are dumb, Jack and Wynn are handsome and good at everything - but this tendency reverses so completely and shockingly at the end that it can almost, but not quite, knock any smugness from a reader. Humans are both the victims and source of corruption in this novel. They decide to turn back to warn the warring couple. A few hours later, the stakes are raised when the smell of smoke wafts in on the wind: A wildfire has gripped the forest and is headed their way. It’s a striking premise: the majesty of the vast Canadian wilderness juxtaposed with a confusingly awkward social situation. They don’t know if they should hurry past or stop and intervene. ![]() ![]() The sound is carried across the water, but the vegetation is so thick they can’t see anyone. Peter Heller’s “The River” opens with the pair canoeing through fog and hearing a man and woman having a furious argument somewhere on shore. They have deliberately chosen not to bring a satellite phone so that they can experience the spirit of the pioneers they revere. Both are young but experienced outdoorsmen who have been flown in and dropped at a barely mapped river in the middle of hundreds of miles of forest. Jack and Wynn, college-student and childhood friends, are canoeing and camping in northern Canada. ![]()
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