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    River of Heaven: A Novel
    Unavailable
    River of Heaven: A Novel
    Unavailable
    River of Heaven: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    River of Heaven: A Novel

    Written by Lee Martin

    Narrated by Arthur Morey

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    "You have to know the rest of my story, the
    part I can't yet bring myself to say. A story
    of a boy I knew a long time ago and a
    brother I loved and then lost."

    Past and present collide in Lee Martin's highly anticipated novel of a man, his brother, and the dark secret that both connects and divides them. Haunting and beautifully wrought, River of Heaven weaves a story of love and loss, confession and redemption, and the mystery buried with a boy named Dewey Finn.

    On an April evening in 1955, Dewey died on the railroad tracks outside Mt. Gilead, Illinois, and the mystery of his death still confounds the people of this small town.

    River of Heaven begins some fifty years later and centers on the story of Dewey's boyhood friend Sam Brady, whose solitary adult life is much formed by what really went on in the days leading up to that evening at the tracks. It's a story he'd do anything to keep from telling, but when his brother, Cal, returns to Mt. Gilead after decades of self-exile, it threatens to come to the surface.

    A Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Bright Forever, Lee Martin masterfully conveys, with a voice that is at once distinct and lyrical, one man's struggle to come to terms with the outcome of his life. Powerful and captivating, River of Heaven is about the high cost of living a lie, the chains that bind us to our past, and the obligations we have to those we love.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateApr 15, 2008
    ISBN9780739358290
    Unavailable
    River of Heaven: A Novel

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    Reviews for River of Heaven

    4/5

    28 ratings2 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Warning ** Mild spoilers, hint of ending **

      A story about loneliness, growing old, and how guilt can shape a life. It's also about the simple joys of friendship and family, and seeking redemption.

      Sam Brady is a sad and lonely 65-year old gay man deeply in the closet and haunted by the death of a childhood friend. His recently widowed neighbor Arthur befriends Sam and succeeds in dragging him to a cooking class for bachelors. When Arthur's troubled granddaughter comes to live with him, she and Sam connect in a way she is unable to connect with Arthur. Slowly Sam starts to come out of his shell, as his new friends push him into more social activities.

      His brother Cal, who never approved of Sam's sexual orientation, comes to visit and reconcile with his brother after years of separation. But Cal brings more trouble with him than anyone expects, and violence mars the ending of this sweet, sad novel. For a literary novel this book was a real page-turner.
    • 4/5
      Sam Brady lives a solitary, secluded life by his own choice. Now 65 years old, he still ponders the events of 50 years ago and how his life was changed in an instant when his friend Dewey was killed. Sam still lives in the small town of his childhood; the reader eventually realizes that his neighbor, gregarious Arthur, is a childhood friend. Through persistence and his own loneliness Arthur teases Sam into a few activities and introduces him to a few other people who gradually become friends--Sam's first friends since adolescence. Martin's lyrical writing expresses Sam's self-relective nature and keen, wry observations. The appearance of Sam's long-estranged brother, Cal, complicates the plot somewhat unnecessarily and the "truth" of Cal's life remains unclear at the end of the book. Sam is a wounded narrator who's tender spirit and encourages the reader to look anew at precious moments of caring and beauty in the world around us.