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River of the Brokenhearted
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.From the Hardcover edition.
448 pages, Paperback
First published August 5, 2003
32 people are currently reading
410 people want to read
About the author
David Adams Richards
46 books205 followersDavid Adams Richards (born 17 October 1950) is a Canadian novelist, essayist, screenwriter and poet.
Born in Newcastle, New Brunswick, Richards left St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, one course shy of completing a B.A. Richards has been a writer-in-residence at various universities and colleges across Canada, including the University of New Brunswick.
Richards has received numerous awards including 2 Gemini Awards for scriptwriting for Small Gifts and "For Those Who Hunt The Wounded Down", the Alden Nowlan Award for Excellence in the Arts, and the Canadian Authors Association Award for his novel Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace. Richards is one of only three writers to have won in both the fiction and non-fiction categories of the Governor General's Award. He won the 1988 fiction award for Nights Below Station Street and the 1998 non-fiction award for Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi. He was also a co-winner of the 2000 Giller Prize for Mercy Among the Children.
In 1971, he married the former Peggy MacIntyre. They have two sons, John Thomas and Anton Richards, and currently reside in Toronto.
John Thomas was born in 1989 in Saint John, New Brunswick.
The Writers' Federation of New Brunswick administers an annual David Adams Richards Award for Fiction.
Richards' papers are currently housed at the University of New Brunswick.
Born in Newcastle, New Brunswick, Richards left St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, one course shy of completing a B.A. Richards has been a writer-in-residence at various universities and colleges across Canada, including the University of New Brunswick.
Richards has received numerous awards including 2 Gemini Awards for scriptwriting for Small Gifts and "For Those Who Hunt The Wounded Down", the Alden Nowlan Award for Excellence in the Arts, and the Canadian Authors Association Award for his novel Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace. Richards is one of only three writers to have won in both the fiction and non-fiction categories of the Governor General's Award. He won the 1988 fiction award for Nights Below Station Street and the 1998 non-fiction award for Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi. He was also a co-winner of the 2000 Giller Prize for Mercy Among the Children.
In 1971, he married the former Peggy MacIntyre. They have two sons, John Thomas and Anton Richards, and currently reside in Toronto.
John Thomas was born in 1989 in Saint John, New Brunswick.
The Writers' Federation of New Brunswick administers an annual David Adams Richards Award for Fiction.
Richards' papers are currently housed at the University of New Brunswick.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
November 6, 2011
I'm thinking that the far East Coast of Canada is kind of like our version of Appalachia or the South. Dark twisted stories seem to brew out of these region of our friends from the North who have graced us with Tim Hortons, Propagahndi, and Alex Trebek (yes, those are the big three cultural exports from Canada, you can take it from me I got a B plus in my Introduction to Canada class in college).
The book is a sweeping family drama set in a small New Brunswick river town. The central actors in the drama are members of two Black Irish families who hated each other in Ireland and then found themselves living next to each other in a small Canadian town as the more wretched of the wretched families. One family begins to better themselves and the other continues to seethe in hatred and envy. Add to the mix of these two feuding families is an Iago-esque figure with a penchant for lying but with the curious inability to ever realize he is lying who is also more than a little envious of the rising fortunes of one of the families. Mix these characters together and throw in some other unsavory elements, some dark secrets and murders and you get a novel that has most of the elements of a Greek Tragedy mixed with, well, Shakespearean intrigues.
That's my book report.
Oh, and there is a lot of GIN drinking going on in this book.
This is the kind of book that I think Karen would love to read, and everyone knows that Karen likes good stuff, right? So, since she hasn't read this yet, you'll just have to take this a proxy Karen recommendation until she does read it, and hopefully like it (or maybe not, and I'm wrong), and when she writes a better, more entertaining and possibly more informative review than this one.
The book is a sweeping family drama set in a small New Brunswick river town. The central actors in the drama are members of two Black Irish families who hated each other in Ireland and then found themselves living next to each other in a small Canadian town as the more wretched of the wretched families. One family begins to better themselves and the other continues to seethe in hatred and envy. Add to the mix of these two feuding families is an Iago-esque figure with a penchant for lying but with the curious inability to ever realize he is lying who is also more than a little envious of the rising fortunes of one of the families. Mix these characters together and throw in some other unsavory elements, some dark secrets and murders and you get a novel that has most of the elements of a Greek Tragedy mixed with, well, Shakespearean intrigues.
That's my book report.
Oh, and there is a lot of GIN drinking going on in this book.
This is the kind of book that I think Karen would love to read, and everyone knows that Karen likes good stuff, right? So, since she hasn't read this yet, you'll just have to take this a proxy Karen recommendation until she does read it, and hopefully like it (or maybe not, and I'm wrong), and when she writes a better, more entertaining and possibly more informative review than this one.
July 16, 2011
It took a while for the author to wrap up this dreary tale and it made me want to drink.
July 9, 2016
David Adams Richard is an excellent writer. This is perhaps the 4th book of his I've read. All his stories take place somewhere in the Maritimes. And all his stories are heart wrenching; about people living hard and dying hard.
This book is no different from his usual prose. The narrator tells the story of his grandparents starting a new life in Canada, coming from Ireland. When grandfather George dies in 1920, Grandmother Janie takes over the running of their movie theatre - one of the first in the Province. She is trying to survive in a world dominated by men and is always up against Joey Elias who is a fiendish and unscrupulous man who is determined to destroy Janie and her children. But Janie's own determination and hard work make her prosperous, much to the dismay of this tyrant, Joey.
It is here, about half way through the book, that I simply lost interest in the story. Every single character was mean, revengeful, hard drinking and just plain nasty. There was nothing any one of them wouldn't do to another, to get ahead or on top.
It became too much for me to read... so I skipped through pages 200-350 and read the final 30 pages, to see how it ended.
This book is no different from his usual prose. The narrator tells the story of his grandparents starting a new life in Canada, coming from Ireland. When grandfather George dies in 1920, Grandmother Janie takes over the running of their movie theatre - one of the first in the Province. She is trying to survive in a world dominated by men and is always up against Joey Elias who is a fiendish and unscrupulous man who is determined to destroy Janie and her children. But Janie's own determination and hard work make her prosperous, much to the dismay of this tyrant, Joey.
It is here, about half way through the book, that I simply lost interest in the story. Every single character was mean, revengeful, hard drinking and just plain nasty. There was nothing any one of them wouldn't do to another, to get ahead or on top.
It became too much for me to read... so I skipped through pages 200-350 and read the final 30 pages, to see how it ended.
July 12, 2014
I don't really know how I feel about this book. It was well written, but the characters are umsympathetic and tragedy piles upon tragedy. It is a miracle that any of them actually end up married - I am still unclear why anynoe would actually want them. The story itself is incredibly sad and depressing. You are compelled to keep reading to the end but I wouldn't say it was an enjoyable read more of an endurance test.
May 14, 2020
Although it was well written I managed to read it after my third try. Finishing it was like getting out of a nightmare, I was glad it was over! Extremely depressing...so much drinking it made me sick and so many misfortunes that it breaks your heart.
September 10, 2016
After 200pages I just don't care about these people and the writing isn't good enough to keep me reading
January 5, 2024
After getting his great revenge - which took the better part of fifty years - our protagonist, Miles King, finally relaxed and celebrated with some chocolate peanut butter ice cream.
August 27, 2019
A satisfying story of sixty years in the King family taking place in Brunswick Canada. The grandmother (Janie) is a strong woman and fights to own and run a movie theater, when men thought it best for women to stay home. The story is told from the viewpoint of her grandson.
September 15, 2014
I was one of the brokenhearted while reading this. It is true that DAR has quite the sense of humour, but there is nothing funny about the stories the characters have to tell, even when they are at their funniest, which is to say, drunk. I am not shocked by the depravity one can find in a small town, but in this small town, every day things, like going to school or the barber shop are tinged with nastiness. The writing is incredibly good, saving me from putting the book down. The only problem I had with it is that I can't remember where Cassie came from. All of a sudden she was just there and playing a huge role. I guess this can be forgiven in a narrative so well crafted. I love that Wendell King is visiting graves and doing research on his ancestors, which I do all the time. I have been lucky enough to find no one brokenhearted - so far.
January 13, 2021
Not as affecting as some of his other reads, but still a wonderful examination of human nature. Strongly felt influences of Steinbeck and Dickens throughout. Shakespeare too.
Love the cinematic history, the tension between combative families, the care and grace he gives his characters. And redemption, David Adams Richards never shies away from it. It is available for even the worst of his characters, or the seeming unworthy. And what a wonderful thing that is to encounter in today's world.
Love the cinematic history, the tension between combative families, the care and grace he gives his characters. And redemption, David Adams Richards never shies away from it. It is available for even the worst of his characters, or the seeming unworthy. And what a wonderful thing that is to encounter in today's world.
June 12, 2023
I definitely did NOT enjoy this book! I moved into an Irish Catholic enclave, outside of Toronto, when I was 5. From then on, until I was 20, and we left, I witnessed all those sorts of abuse, and more. The constant drunkenness, fighting, and flagrant mistreatment was very similar to that reported by the author. So, for me, it was close to truth, and to my nightmares. I was determined to finish the book, but I do NOT recommend it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 30, 2021
Not sure how I feel about this book. It was well written, with interesting characters and life stories, but it was also depressing and full of tragedy. It went on a little long, and I was ready for it to end, but I still enjoyed it and am glad I read it.
May 18, 2024
I usually like a slow journey as a character grows and changes, but this one just seemed to be a lot of pages with a lot of characters (related) very slowly moving through very sad and wasted lives. Very disappointing.
July 7, 2025
I’ve been at this book for over two weeks and gave up. Sure, I’ve had company but still… The first 50 pages held promise but it just got increasingly filled with horrible people doing horrible things. Too depressing. I gave up after about 200 pages.
December 7, 2017
Great as usual. Fun times in the maritimes.
May 4, 2020
A nicely crafted story following a couple in a small town through the generations. On of his better books for sure.
Read
October 1, 2021A semi-family-biographical novel with all the usual violence, triumph, and despair.
February 18, 2025
Although it was slow at points and sometimes felt as though there was a lot of exposition, every detail paid off in a very emotional and touching way. I was not expecting to cry at the end.
January 21, 2015
3.5 STARS
"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." (From Amazon)
"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." (From Amazon)
March 16, 2011
David Adams Richards uses the life of his grandmother as inspiration for the character Hanna Jane (Janie) McLeary King in River of the Brokenhearted, a multigenerational family saga set in a small New Brunswick village. The novel is narrated by her grandson, Wendell King, and covers four generations of the McLeary/King family. Joey Elias is the family's nemesis, as well as the Druken family. Where Janie's tenacity helps her overcome great persecution and brings her financial success, her family crumbles due to her lack of emotional support. They are overwhelmed with the petty cruelty of their lives and become alcoholics.
Richards is a brilliant writer. He always covers conflicting themes of love and hate, good and evil. His character development is exquisite. And while all of his characters are flawed and struggle with memories, faith, and integrity, often their reflections strike the core of a vital truth for all of humanity. Even as Janie's descendants fail to learn from their mistakes, there is the underlying sense that redemption is possible for even the most flawed characters and that in the end justice will prevail.
The sense of time and place remain consistently strong in River of the Brokenhearted. Richards has a gift for setting the scene and placing his characters squarely in that world. Even their speech patterns are distinct for each character. He can also clearly record the irrational thinking processes of those overwhelmed by greed or drink and the explanations they give themselves for their actions.
I am starting a personal David Adams Richards Fan Club. After reading Mercy Among the Children and The Bay of Love and Sorrows I can safely say that Richards is an incredible, amazing writer who deserves a wider audience - and a fan club.
Very Highly Recommended; http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/
Richards is a brilliant writer. He always covers conflicting themes of love and hate, good and evil. His character development is exquisite. And while all of his characters are flawed and struggle with memories, faith, and integrity, often their reflections strike the core of a vital truth for all of humanity. Even as Janie's descendants fail to learn from their mistakes, there is the underlying sense that redemption is possible for even the most flawed characters and that in the end justice will prevail.
The sense of time and place remain consistently strong in River of the Brokenhearted. Richards has a gift for setting the scene and placing his characters squarely in that world. Even their speech patterns are distinct for each character. He can also clearly record the irrational thinking processes of those overwhelmed by greed or drink and the explanations they give themselves for their actions.
I am starting a personal David Adams Richards Fan Club. After reading Mercy Among the Children and The Bay of Love and Sorrows I can safely say that Richards is an incredible, amazing writer who deserves a wider audience - and a fan club.
Very Highly Recommended; http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/
August 27, 2016
Four stars might be a tad generous, but something about this book really appealed to me. It definitely fits the description on the cover of my edition of being a tragicomic story. The protagonist, Miles King, is a deeply flawed man who is unable to escape the influence of his powerful mother and roundly disliked by everyone around him (except his son Wendell) his whole life. And yet, it seems to be his mother's success and his bad fortune as a young boy of choosing to see some trained monkeys at the circus rather than keeping a close eye on his young sister for which he is despised. The book is filled with greedy, self-serving, loutish characters so Miles, who is a gentleman throughout, in some ways shines by comparison. Richards does a wonderful job creating Miles's old-fashioned speech patterns, and the drunken exchanges between Miles and Wendell are often achingly sad and extremely funny at the same time. I have a few quibbles with the choice of Wendell as the narrator because there are large parts of the narrative which could only be explained by an omniscient narrator and I didn't think that Rebecca Druken's character was as realistic as the rest, but overall I thought it was a really well crafted story.
September 24, 2012
I enjoyed this book as much as Mercy Among The Children. David Adams Richards writes a good story that gets you involved from the beginning and keeps you involved all along the way. It is similar in theme to Mercy in that it takes place along the Miramichi River in New Brunswick and is narrated by someone whose father was bullied in childhood and relates the effect that has had on the family. It spans two generations which brings the story all together. Some may find the story relentlessly disheartening with the mean-spirited people, but the brilliance of Richards writing is how he keeps you interested and waiting to see what the final outcome will be. He has become one of my favourite Canadian authors.
October 18, 2015
Janie MacLeary and George King run one of the first movie theaters in the Maritimes. When George dies, Jane continues to run the business which flourishes despite her rival Joey Ellis who also has a theater and who tries several devious tricks and plots to undermine her.
Janie has two children: Miles and Georgina. Georgina, the favored child of her mother, mysteriously disappears while under the care of Miles. Their nanny Rebecca from a rival family haunts them and everyone in town it seems hates them because of their prosperity.
Miles grows up, marries and has two children, Ginger and Wendall but is haunted his entire life by the death of his sister while under his care.
Another sad tale of life in the Miramichi.
Janie has two children: Miles and Georgina. Georgina, the favored child of her mother, mysteriously disappears while under the care of Miles. Their nanny Rebecca from a rival family haunts them and everyone in town it seems hates them because of their prosperity.
Miles grows up, marries and has two children, Ginger and Wendall but is haunted his entire life by the death of his sister while under his care.
Another sad tale of life in the Miramichi.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 10, 2015
A multi-generational story told with beautiful prose by Richards. The setting is the Miramichi River area of New Brunswick, with two families recently immigrated from Ireland maintaining a feud begun in 1790. One of the families are the owners of a movie theater and drive-in from the silent era until the 1980s. Old Hollywood films and stars litter the novel, and the business becomes central to much of the action of the plot. Thoroughly enjoyed this book!
July 13, 2011
WOW! David Adams Richards is the author of the century. Characters that are transfixing, each contributing to the others, all entwined in the story of life,good and bad for what its worth. No fairies, no space ships, just what life is all about and how one human contributes to the next, to the next, to the next....much more drawing and fulfilling than make believe.
August 6, 2012
Aces. As always. I dig his stuff.
This one is about ... a family. The Kings.
Based on his family - or at least some events in the life of his grandmother. In the dedication:
“To....cousins... who know that though this is based on incidents in the life of our grandmother Janie - it is a work of fiction.”
Nice one.
This one is about ... a family. The Kings.
Based on his family - or at least some events in the life of his grandmother. In the dedication:
“To....cousins... who know that though this is based on incidents in the life of our grandmother Janie - it is a work of fiction.”
Nice one.
September 18, 2012
The book spans over sixty years (1920's to 1990's) in the McLeary/King family history. My main question is with how the narrator knew what was happening in scenes in which he was not involved. It was not a bad read, but I found it hard at times to believe that what was being described would actually happen. The narrator and his father are alcoholics, so maybe that explains it.
October 19, 2013
It's been a while since I read any of his books so I can't remember if every character is always so completely unsympathetic. Still, I was sucked in from page 1 and never wanted to look away from the tragedy of their lives. This booked seemed less Miramichi than I remember in others, like it could have been written about any small town of the time.
November 18, 2008
It was a sad story that spanned generations and there was a twist of a mystery that you didn't find out till the end of the 300 some page book. I will read something else by him because he is a good storyteller, but he's kind of wordy and not real easy to read.
January 22, 2011
Not quite the "happiest" of David Adams Richards' novels. Better to label it as the most emotionally satisfying...though the emotions tend to be on the dark end of the revenge, retribution & come-uppance scale.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews