Richards, David Adams

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The Friends of Meager Fortune
"A man like many here would not live in the world to come."

The Friends of Meager Fortune
David Adams Richards
Manufacturer: MacAdam Cage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1596921897

Book Description

In his major new novel, The Friends of Meager Fortune, Richards explores the dying days of the lumber industry in the mid-twentieth century. This is a transfixing love story of betrayal, envy, and sexual jealousy, which builds to a tragically inevitable climax. It is also a devastating portrait of a pre-mechanized time, and a brilliant commemoration of the passing of a world. Rich with all the passion, ambition and almost mythic vision that defines David Adams Richards' work, The Friends of Meager Fortune is a profound and important book about the hands and the heart; about true greatness and true weakness; about the relentlessness of fate and the evil that men and women do. Wise, stark, and without a false word in it, it cements David Adams Richards' claim to be the finest novelist at work in Canada today.

Customer Reviews:

The Friends of Meager Fortune.......2007-06-02

David Adams Richards has done a terrific job of describing the mid-twentieth century Canadian lumber industry. He has provided the reader with a wonderful cast of characters who are all affected by a vicious rumor. I wanted to reach inside the book and shake the characters, who not only believed the rumor, but did nothing to find the truth. Two soldiers become involved with a woman married to one, but attracted to the hero. When her husband disappears, the rumor spreads through the small town.

In the meantime, the logging goes on, the loggers endure the treacherous terrain to get the logs to the river, the valiant horses perform their duties, and the Canadian winter provides unbearably harsh conditions for the loggers. The story includes a faux murder that gets tied into the original rumor, the hero of the story is accused of the murder on the basis of the discovery of a mutilated and unidentified body. All the while, Meager Fortune, who does not appear until well into the story, is taking care of the loggers on the mountain. He is the one who discovers the betrayal of one of the loggers who is tagging the logs with a competitor's stamp. But he does not report this betrayal. In the end, the hero dies an heroic death, and the long-lost husband reappears, putting an end to the long-running rumor that had virtually destroyed reputations and resulted in the conviction of an innocent man for the death of another man, who never died.

This book was so well written. The characters were well described, and I (and I hope other readers) was able to empathize with the rumor victims. I cried real tears when Owen died, breathed a sigh of relief when Reggie reappeared, and wanted to give Meager Fortune a hug for his undying dedication to his logging buddies.

Kudos, Mr. Richards. I loved your book.

"A man like many here would not live in the world to come.".......2007-02-18

Mid-twentieth century Canada is a time of vast change in the lumber industry, although few can see the decline of the old ways that looms on the horizon, massive amounts of timber moved by the grueling labor of men who have defined their lives in the felling and harvesting of trees. Will Jameson, who takes over his family's business upon the death of his father, is only sixteen when he achieves the status of legend. But Will's untimely death, though prophesied by a palm-reader, throws younger brother Owen into the breech, Owen forever fighting the long shadow of his more accomplished and manly sibling. Even though he has returned from the war a hero, Owen cannot measure up in the eyes of the town. It is never Owen's intent to save his family's fortune, but he feels obligated to aid his widowed mother, the stoic and gullible Mary.

Owen's problems emerge through the power of gossip and innuendo. His war hero status deteriorates as the town whispers of his obsession with Camellia, wife of Reggie Glidden, Will's best friend. Undeniably attracted to Camellia, Owen's affection remains innocent, Camellia the unwary manipulator of the situation as she encourages Owen to take over the company and help her locate the now-missing Reggie. Soon the rumors reach a deafening roar; with Reggie's mysterious disappearance, it is assumed that the couple has done away with the man who stands in their way. That this is mere supposition carries no weight in the world of public opinion, especially when a story is circulated by Lula Brower, a vain young woman set to appropriate Owen for her fiancé until felled by a stroke that alters her fortune as a marriageable woman.

Meanwhile, Own throws himself into the lumber business, desperately harvesting the timber in one of the most dangerous areas of growth, his men held barely in check with their internal feuding and petty grievances. While some, like Meager Fortune, remain loyal to Owen, others allow themselves to be seduced by Owen's rivals, further complicating an already dangerous endeavor to save the Jameson's interests. When an unidentified body is found floating in the river, despite the fact that it is too decayed to be recognizable, the town assumes the worst, pointing the finger of guilt at the suspected miscreants, Owen and Camellia.

As the industry is doomed in its present incarnation, so too are the innocent lovers, tried by public opinion, rumors flying from mouth to mouth in lieu of facts with amazing speed. The locals gather gossip, embellishing it at will, passing it along to strangers until no semblance of the truth remains, the town seething with rancor at an assumed crime. In a rapidly changing century, where mechanization is on the rise, this sad drama plays out against the majesty of the great wooded forests providing sustenance for families who spend their time spilling lies to alleviate their uncertainty. Seen through the telescope of time, the history of an era is rendered insignificant compared to the gratuitous evil of careless and vicious words. Luan Gaines/2007.

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I gave up.
Fiction on a Monumental and Profound Scale
a book on human morality and values
exquisite
Haunting

Mercy Among the Children: A Novel
David Adams Richards
Manufacturer: Washington Square Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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River of the Brokenhearted
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The Englishman's Boy: A Novel
The Bay of Love and Sorrows
Twelve Tough Issues and More: What the Church Teaches and Why

ASIN: 0743448189
Release Date: 2002-10-08

Amazon.com

Transpose Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure to New Brunswick's rugged Miramichi River. Surround Job with loose fists, malicious boots, and cold, gallon wine. Invite the Macbeths over for drinks. Add a lame dog named Scupper Pit and you've got the raw ingredients of David Adams Richards's Mercy Among the Children. Set in an isolated, wind-besieged house with bullet holes in the tarpaper walls, Richards's novel wonders-- pointedly, beautifully--whether goodness is merely a luxury.

At the age of 12, having borne more suffering in his child's body than any adult should endure, Sydney Henderson vows never to harm another human soul. Turning his back on the violent alcoholism of his upbringing, self-educated Sydney wins the honest respect of the beautiful Elly and the children they bear. Honest respect, however, is rarely a match for fear and base human opportunism. Manipulated, attacked, and abused by a small community eager for a scapegoat, Sydney loses his job, the health of his wife, and, most importantly, the respect of his son Lyle. "There is no worse flaw in man's character," Richards knows, "than that of wanting to belong."

The superb, controlled, and unapologetic Mercy Among the Children is nothing less than an inquiry into human strength. Richards uses the crack of ribs on a frigid night to remind us of the opportunistic populism of much so- called morality. Mercy, which shared Canada's premier fiction award, the Giller Prize, with Michael Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost, combines the hound dog's attention to locale of fellow Maritimer Alistair MacLeod with the quotidian insight of countryman Timothy Findley's The Wars, especially its reminder that the emotions behind war also drive fights over who should scrub the dinner dishes. --Darryl Whetter

Book Description

When twelve-year-old Sidney Henderson pushes his friend Connie off the roof of a local church in a moment of anger, he makes a silent vow: Let Connie live and I will never harm another soul. At that very moment, Connie stands, laughs, and walks away. Sidney keeps his promise through adulthood despite the fact that his insular, rural community uses his pacifism to exploit him. Sidney's son Lyle, however, assumes an increasingly aggressive stance in defense of his family. When a small boy is killed in a tragic accident and Sidney is blamed, Lyle takes matters into his own hands. In his effort to protect the people he loves -- his beautiful and fragile mother, Elly; his gifted sister, Autumn; and his innocent brother, Percy -- it is Lyle who will determine his family's legacy.

Customer Reviews:

I gave up........2007-05-07

Fine writing, beyond a doubt. I read widely and skip the fluff, but this was just sooooooooo unmitigatedly depressing, page after page of utter misery, that I could not go on. If you are really STRONG, get it, read it. Otherwise, you may never reach the mercy. I didn't.

Fiction on a Monumental and Profound Scale.......2006-09-24

Don't miss this one!

I have just completed this amazing novel, after devouring it in three days. David Adams Richards is a novelist of such staggering power that it is not at all a stretch to compare him with Hardy, Melville, and Tolstoy. His story of Morality, Poverty, Family, Violence, and the inevitable hand of Fate is a controlled steamroller of mounting tragedies, set in motion by a collection of common saints, fools, and monsters, characters in a town bound together by generations of interlocking lives.

Author Richards's unflinching portrait of a family destitute and battered by the condemnation of their community reminded me of the great novel "The Dollmaker" by Harriet Arnow, while the awesomely constructed plot that unfolds with such terrifying inevitability reminded me of that greatest of thrillers, "A Simple Plan" by Scott Smith.

That a book can be such a profound comment on our Humanity, and still be such a monster of a gripping story that you'll be unable to stop reading, is a gift to the lover of great novels.

And it is as affecting to the reader as Greek drama -- it will take me days to come down from the experience of reading it, and perhaps years to find a novel as perfectly formed as Mercy Among The Children.

a book on human morality and values.......2006-06-16

Mercy Among the Children was an incredible book. Dark and movingly dramatic, the characters are poetic martyrs in a strongly written story. Set in the depths of squalor and absolute depravity, we are introduced to the Henderson family, struggling to eke out a living in a small rural community.

Shunned, despised, and ridiculed in so many ways, they strive to conquer the cruelty of human heart through a humbly noble but suffering spirit. All except for Lyle, the narrator, who watches his father, an unrecognized scholar, become a pariah, his beautiful mother become the piteous object of desire and defamation, his sister Autumn the center of ridicule, and his small brother Percy whose painful innocence is undaunted in the face of disappointment after disappointment.

Unlike his sister and mother, Lyle refuses to accept his father's way of quietly refusing to fight back against the antagonists. Throughout the story a seeping rage builds in him from a simmer until we finally see the repercussions of a tormented childhood and early adulthood come full tilt.

This book is brilliantly written. It explores human strengths and weaknesses, morality and intrinsic values, in a raw, almost primeval story of survival.

exquisite.......2006-05-27

I'm finding it hard to find words in our language to describe this book - exquisitely beautiful is all I can come up with - this book is a must read

Haunting.......2005-12-06

I have owned this book for three years now and only recently read it for the first time. The characters of this tragic story will haunt me for some time. The story takes place in an economically depressed region of Canada, the Maritime provinces. Because the characters are the 'have nots' of society they are victimzed for it whether it be those that have and even those who do not. Sadly some even allowed themselves to become victims.
The characters all wear a heavy heart, but there is joy in this story even with its deep sadness. This is the third David Adams Richards novel I have read. Each one is exceptionally written where the region (Chatham, New Brunswick) plays such a significant as well as the theme of GOOD vs EVIL in which is very present, but brilliantly murky thus reminds the reader that to be truly good, one needs to know a bit about evil and so goes the other way. The male and female characters are both strongly presented which I cannot imagine is an easy thing to do since the author like protagonist in the book are male.
I wish that readers after finishing the book will scamper out and pick up other books by the same author and of the same beautiful region of Canada, that is the Maritime provinces and Newfoundland. Believe me, you will not regret this.

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Unraveling the Laws of Human Morality...

River of the Brokenhearted
David Adams Richards
Manufacturer: Arcade Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Mercy Among the Children: A Novel
The Bay of Love and Sorrows
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Suite Francaise

ASIN: 1559707127

From Amazon.ca

Set in a small town on a river in New Brunswick, River of the Brokenhearted, David Adams Richards's first novel since his Giller Prize-winning Mercy Among the Children, is told by Wendell King, son of Miles King and grandson of the feisty, willful Janie McLeary King, who made her fortune running the town's first cinema. Set against this trio is the lower-class family of the Drukens, especially Rebecca Druken and her uncle, Joey Elias, bitter because their own early cinema failed. Established early on, the feud plays out across three generations, spanning successes, failures, murder, and dissolution. Yet despite the somewhat bleak subject matter, tremendous humour and vitality persist in this story. The characters leap off the page, and in the person of Miles King, Richards has imagined a fully human soul of stunning believability. Miles is fatally flawed, committing slow suicide by gin as his cinema too begins to fail in the face of the TV's small screen. A sensitive eccentric, a target of small-town narrowness, he is subtly tortured psychically, for years, by Elias and the vicious Rebecca, who have made the downfall of the Kings their life's ambition. Miles King is a character of great loneliness, pathos, humor, and compassion, one of the finest creations not only of Canadian writing but any literature.

River of the Brokenhearted is the story of a river, the Miramichi, but it is mostly about the river of time that passes through Miles King, his mother, his son, and their enemies, carrying all to their ultimate fates: "She had left a river in New Brunswick that would swallow you with its life, shout in its rapids, laugh in its eddies, create industry in its currents, a river of Irish and Scottish myth, wedded to the soil." An outstanding work of fiction. --Mark Frutkin

Book Description

In the 1920s, Janie McLeary and George King run one of the first movie theatres in the Maritimes. The marriage of the young Irish Catholic woman to an older English man is thought scandalous, but they work happily together, playing music to accompany the films. When George succumbs to illness and dies, leaving Janie with one young child and another on the way, the unscrupulous Joey Elias tries to take over the business. But Janie guards the theatre with a shotgun, and still in mourning, re-opens it herself. “If there was no real bliss in Janie’s life,” recounts her grandson, “there were moments of triumph.”

One night, deceived by the bank manager and Elias into believing she will lose her mortgage, Janie resolves to go and ask for money from the Catholic houses. Elias has sent out men to stop her, so she leaps out the back window and with a broken rib she swims in the dark across the icy Miramichi River, doubting her own sanity. Yet, seeing these people swayed into immoral actions because of their desire to please others and their fear of being outcast, she thinks to herself that “…all her life she had been forced to act in a way uncommon with others… Was sanity doing what they did? And if it was, was it moral or justified to be sane?”

Astonishingly, she finds herself face to face that night with influential Lord Beaverbrook, who sees in her tremendous character and saves her business. Not only does she survive, she prospers; she becomes wealthy, but ostracized. Even her own father helps Elias plot against her. Yet Janie McLeary King thwarts them and brings first-run talking pictures to the town.

Meanwhile, she employs Rebecca from the rival Druken family to look after her children. Jealous, and a protégé of Elias, Rebecca mistreats her young charges. The boy Miles longs to be a performer, but Rebecca convinces him he is hated, and he inherits his mother’s enemies. The only person who truly loves her, he is kept under his mother’s influence until, eventually, he takes a job as the theatre’s projectionist. He drinks heavily all his life, tends his flowers, and talks of things no-one believes, until the mystery at the heart of the novel finally unravels.

“At six I began to realize that my father was somewhat different,” says Miles King’s son Wendell, who narrates the saga in an attempt to find answers in the past and understand “how I was damned.” It is a many-layered epic of rivalries, misunderstandings, rumours; the abuse of power, what weak people will do for love, and the true power of doing right; of a pioneer and her legacy in the lives of her son and grandchildren.

“David Adams Richards is perhaps the greatest Canadian writer alive,” wrote Lynn Coady in the Vancouver Sun. From this winner of the Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Award comes a story of a woman’s determined struggle against small town prejudice, and her son’s long battle against deceit. Richards’ own family ran Newcastle’s Uptown Theatre from 1911 to 1980, and Janie is based on his grandmother. Cast upon this history is a drama that explores morality and “the question of how one should live,” as The Atlantic Monthly said of Mercy Among the Children, his previous novel.

Reviewers agree that Richards’ fiction sits firmly in the tradition of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky by concerning itself explicitly with good and evil and the human freedom to choose between them. Once again, in River of the Brokenhearted, his twelfth novel, Richards has created a work of compassion and assured, poetic sophistication which finds in the hearts of its characters venality and goodwill, cruelty and love.

Customer Reviews:

Unraveling the Laws of Human Morality..........2004-12-06

This is the best book that I have read in a long time. David Adams Richards writes about dichotomous themes--good and evil, love and hate--in a world that seems to have lost its sense of distinction between such binary oppositions. Richards's novel spans four generations and tells the story of two families--the Drukens and the Mclearys--and their conflict-ridden estrangement from themselves and from each other. Janie Mcleary, the protagonist, is an assertive and successful business woman who is left widowed by her husband. She and her children are tormented by the Druken family. Her daughter, Georgina, is murdered and her son, Miles, grows up to be ghosted by his past. Characters in this novel are haunted by memories and stuggle with their faith, morality and integrity. Richard's capacity as an author, stems, in part, from his astute perception into the nature of human greed and faith. River of the Brokenhearted is not a sensuous romance novel; it is a journey into the moral struggles of humanity. Richards conveys the notion that the "good" people and the "bad" people are not always cut in black and white colors; some seemingly "immoral" characters (i.e. Miles the alcoholic) emerge as the unsaid heroes of this text. Past wrongs are translated into bodily ailments that afflict the characters on a physical level, but these wrongs are erasable. Characters are given the chance of redemption. This book resonates with spiritual undertones. It may increase your faith...

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Canada and Hockey - They will only survive together.
Dreams Unforgotten

Hockey Dreams
David Adams Richards
Manufacturer: Doubleday Canada
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0385256078
Release Date: 1996-09-01

Book Description

With a voice as Canadian as winter, David Adams Richards reflects on the place of hockey in the Canadian soul.

The lyrical narrative of Hockey Dreams flows from Richards' boyhood games on the Miramichi to heated debates with university professors who dare to back the wrong team. It examines the globalization of hockey, and how Canadians react to the threat of foreigners beating us at "our" game.

Part memoir, part essay on national identity, part hockey history, Hockey Dreams is a meditation by one of Canada's finest writers on the essence of the game that helps define our nation.

Customer Reviews:

Canada and Hockey - They will only survive together........2002-09-18

Richards makes a distinct comment about Canada in Hockey Dreams. He shows that he is a true Canadian, and is not one of those people who like to think of themselves as intellectuals that are above the game of hockey. Hockey is deep rooted in this country, and though it is true that it will never be the same, we still catch glimpses of its true spirit now and again. Richards has caught the spirit of the game and put it on paper. His is a remarkable feat considering that most of us can't even describe the game sufficiently in words. This is a must read for all people who consider themselves true Canadians.

In all of my eighteen years, I've never read a more accurate description of my game and its meaning.

Dreams Unforgotten.......2000-11-06

Richards reveals all those things which we thought nobody else had ever reflected upon. Could an American possibly enjoy this book? I'm not sure. But every Canadian who once was young, and who perhaps scooped mounds of snow, in a transe of fantasy, off a bumpy ice surface into the dark hours of once endless days, will appreciate this book like the game itself; the merciless joy of unhindered potential for our imagined years to come, and our mission to reach our potential until reality sinks in, will occupy your every shift, deek, and goal (or assist, for that matter). And this, from a 19 year old reader--just a reminder to Richards: though times have changed, they have ever remained the same (kids still play hockey, but then, maybe it isn't the same after all).

Lives of Short Duration (New Canadian Library)

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Lives of Short Duration (New Canadian Library)
David Adams Richards
Manufacturer: New Canadian Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0771098863
Release Date: 1993-04-01

Book Description

The Terris are engaging people, but they are a family in collapse. Alcoholism, drugs, and loveless sex have reduced them to a petty and wasted bunch. Worse, they typify aspects of the larger community besieged by financial woes and by creeping economic and cultural Americanization.

What David Adams Richards accomplishes is no mean feat: his characters are at times vicious, sleazy, and even outright dim, yet he manages to entitle them to the interest and sympathy of the reader.

Even more now than at its first publication in 1981, Lives of Short Duration’s sharp, essential insights have significance for readers seeking to understand the modern Canadian predicament.

The Coming of Winter (New Canadian Library)

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An impressive debut

The Coming of Winter (New Canadian Library)
David Adams Richards
Manufacturer: New Canadian Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0771098855
Release Date: 1992-09-01

Book Description

David Adams Richards finds universal truths in the very particular setting of New Brunswick’s Miramichi Valley. This, his first novel, provides a window upon a world that is as unsettling, as uncontrollable, and as inescapably authentic as a sudden brawl.

The frustrations of the community are brought into focus in the plights of 20-year-old Kevin Dulse, his family, and especially his wild young friends. An intensely realistic story, it stands firm upon its engaging, unaffected characters and the raw talent of its then 22-year-old author.

Customer Reviews:

An impressive debut.......2002-10-19

After reading the author's most recent work, followed by one somewhere in the middle, it was intriguing to read Richards' first novel. Written, amazingly, when he was only 23, The Coming of Winter foreshadows the splendid writer Richards has come to be.

This first of his New Brunswick (Canada, not New Jersey) novels is a potently quiet tale of a clutch of near-silent, deeply brooding people. At the apex is young Kevin Dulse, whose twenty-first birthday and marriage are approaching within two weeks' time. As are all the characters, Kevin's inner life is deftly depicted in all of its inchoate anger, integrity and confusion. The men in this book all have active lives of the mind but seem congenitally unable to articulate their thoughts and feelings. The women are only slightly more adept at expressing themselves.

What makes the novel so readable is the exquisitely observed minutiae of everyday life in a small town whose major employer is the mill. Kevin's observations while working a number of jobs at the mill, his determination to do even the lowliest job thoroughly and well, make him entirely human and sympathetic. His inability not to go out drinking with his friends is annoying--to him and to the reader--and yet he cannot stop himself.

In the course of the two weeks covered by the novel, Kevin takes any number of steps forward into maturity, into adulthood. The details of his mother's efforts to prepare for her son's wedding with only a week's notice are beautifully realized and touchingly real.

Book Description

For David Adams Richards, blood ties is not merely a figure of speech, but an assertion of the reality of life in small-town Canada, where blood ties people in countless, almost unknowable ways to friends, community, and landscape. The lives of three generations of MacDurmots form a Miramichi Valley family portrait that is beguiling, insightful, witty, and tender. Employing dazzling angles of vision and fast-shifting perspectives, Richards captures the inner lives of his characters with sympathy and understanding.

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Investing in Venture Capital
Donald E. Fischer , Edward W. Kane , Katherine A. Cattanach , Linda A. Vincent T. Bondurant French , Franklin P. Johnson C. Kevin Landry , Greta A. Marshall David F. Swensen , Richard J. Testa , Stanley Pratt , Rodney H. Adams , and Tim E. Bliamptis
Manufacturer: AIMR (CFA Institute)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Public Finance | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0935015124

Book Description

Many investors are attracted to the venture capital market by the possibility of outstanding returns, but these returns are associated with high levels of risk. This proceedings examines the attractiveness of venture capital as an asset class and explores cycles that affect venture capital investments and whether venture capital makes sense for institutional investors.

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One word: Wow
Sublime writing...

The Bay of Love and Sorrows
David Adams Richards
Manufacturer: Arcade Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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River of the Brokenhearted
Mercy Among the Children: A Novel

ASIN: 1559706503

Book Description

Set mainly within a small rural area along a bay between New Brunswick and P.E.I., The Bay of Love and Sorrow is a hard-hitting tale of ambition and betrayal in which the senseless murder of a young woman in the summer of 1974 changes the lives of an entire community.

Events are set in motion when the once-strong friendship between privileged Michael Skid, the young son of a judge from town, and farmhand Tommie Donnerel ends in bitter misunderstanding. As Michael sets out to prove something to himself and to others, he finds himself drawn into the company of the beautiful, strong-willed Madonna Brassaurd and her brother, Silver. The three of them soon fall prey to the glamour of Everette Hutch, a charismatic and violent man, whose latest scheme pulls them in over their heads, leading to tragedy.

Bridging the decent world of Tommie Donnerel and the darker realm of the Brassaurds and Everette Hutch is Karrie Smith. She is home for the summer from community college, and it is her poignant longings for a different life that make her most vulnerable to a world she doesn’t understand.

The summer becomes fraught with desperation and abrupt changes of fortune, but it is only in the aftermath of murder that the real truth flowers for those who have been most responsible.

Taut, intricately layered, written in penetrating prose, The Bay of Love and Sorrows explores the possibility of redemption in whatever circumstances people find themselves.

Customer Reviews:

One word: Wow.......2003-09-26

'The Bay of Love and Sorrows' is one of the best books--if not THE best--I've ever read.

Most books tend to be draggy at the start. This is an exception. It sucks you in from the beginning. It sucks you in and makes you feel like you're an observer, watching everything that's going on as the author describes it. You get outraged, you get saddened, you feel relief,...you feel everything as you read through this; and as you get further and further along, you don't want to stop reading.

The characters are human. No one is saintly, everyone has their faults and strengths. The actions and scenery are described very well--sometimes in a few words, sometimes in many words.

More importantly, though, it makes you think about how justice is doled out sometimes--how sometimes those who have nothing to do with what has happened end up suffering before those involved get their just desserts. It also makes you think about how some people will believe anything anyone tells them, without having the audacity and the know-how to question everything.

A definite must-read.

Sublime writing..........2001-04-11

If you've not read any of David Adams Richards' books, you're missing a wonderful experience. Richards is master of the sublime, even when covering gritty topics and plotlines. Such as it is in this title; the characters are imperfect, flawed, some of them disturbed, outcast. This story is a tangled web woven, entrapping the souls it skirts, unravelling their lives as the situation(s) gain momentum. There are truly haunting moments experienced as one absorbs the tale. Although the reader will have affinity with the characters' very human flaws, Richards never allows us to get too close and I believe he does that deliberately; this fiction takes an in-depth look at the shallowness of living on the edge and the waste that it is.

The story will pull you in gently and carry you along with ease - the writing is so good you don't notice it... you simply absorb the story and its characters.

I've been keeping my eyes open for more of this writer's works (I started with his latest "Mercy Among the Children") as he has quickly become one of my fave writers. This is an excellent starter into the rich and dense world of David Adams Richards. Enjoy.

Lines On the Water: A Fly Fisherman's Life On the Miramichi
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Lines On the Water: A Fly Fisherman's Life On the Miramichi
David Adams Richards
Manufacturer: Arcade Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Fishing | Hunting & Fishing | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1559706783

Book Description

Writing with the same mastery and insight that have won him praise for his fiction, Richards brings to life a community centered on fly-fishing, a sport that has become, for many, a way of life. Weaving together tales of the guides and poachers, the "sports" and the city slickers, Richards pays tribute to all who have shared the joy of fishing. From his first fishing trip at age 4 to his endless search for the next great fishing pool, Richards takes us beyond fly-fishing and offers thoughts and insight about nature, perseverance, reverence, friendship, history, memory, and the changes the modern world has brought. Lines on the Water teems with wisdom, humor, and most of all, passion.

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