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Black River: An Award-Winning Literary Novel of the American West – Prison Riot, Parole, and a Correctional Officer's Journey to Forgiveness
An Indie Next Title • An Indies Introduce Title • Long-listed for the 2015 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
“Impressive . . . [A] tough, honest novel by a surprisingly wise young writer.” — Washington Post
“A complex and powerful story—put Black River on the must-read list.” — Seattle Times
Wes Carver returns to his hometown—Black River, Montana—with two his wife’s ashes and a letter from the parole board. The convict who once held him hostage during a prison riot is up for release. For years, Wes earned his living as a corrections officer and found his joy playing the fiddle. But the riot shook Wes’s faith and robbed him of his music; now he must decide if his attacker should walk free. With “lovely rhythms, spare language, tenderness, and flashes of rage” ( Los Angeles Review of Books ), S. M. Hulse shows us the heart and darkness of an American town, and one man’s struggle to find forgiveness in the wake of evil.
“Artful . . . Hulse evokes the Montana landscape in lyrical, vivid prose.” — Boston Globe
“Hulse believes that grace happens in a look between two people, or a moment of holding back. A powerful elegy.” — Guardian
“Impressive . . . [A] tough, honest novel by a surprisingly wise young writer.” — Washington Post
“A complex and powerful story—put Black River on the must-read list.” — Seattle Times
Wes Carver returns to his hometown—Black River, Montana—with two his wife’s ashes and a letter from the parole board. The convict who once held him hostage during a prison riot is up for release. For years, Wes earned his living as a corrections officer and found his joy playing the fiddle. But the riot shook Wes’s faith and robbed him of his music; now he must decide if his attacker should walk free. With “lovely rhythms, spare language, tenderness, and flashes of rage” ( Los Angeles Review of Books ), S. M. Hulse shows us the heart and darkness of an American town, and one man’s struggle to find forgiveness in the wake of evil.
“Artful . . . Hulse evokes the Montana landscape in lyrical, vivid prose.” — Boston Globe
“Hulse believes that grace happens in a look between two people, or a moment of holding back. A powerful elegy.” — Guardian
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2015
120 people are currently reading
3420 people want to read
About the author
S.M. Hulse
3 books190 followersS. M. Hulse received her M.F.A. from the University of Oregon and was a fiction fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her stories have appeared in Willow Springs, Witness, and Salamander. A horsewoman and fiddler, she has spent time in Washington, Montana, Idaho, and Oregon.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 483 reviews
July 7, 2018
… this was something he was good at. Keeping his word. Following through. Doing what needed to be done.
this is a tremendous character study of a man who is not lovable, nor even likable much of the time, but is nonetheless irrefutably compelling.
i have this book on my "grit lit" shelf, but it's a sort of variant of traditional grit lit. there's definitely enough darkness, violence, dysfunction, and criminality to qualify it for the term, but her writing is more meditative than the muscular urgency that so frequently characterizes grit lit. it's not a gender-thing - there's nothing "feminine" about the writing and it's much more gritty than pretty, but it's also more ruminative than others i have on that shelf, and its themes are more mature and nuanced. it's actually a little like The Ploughmen in tone and some of its themes.
wes carver is a hard and damaged 60 years old, a man recently widowed, deep in debt from medical bills, who finds himself returning to black river, montana after almost twenty years of living in spokane with claire, his beloved wife of thirty years. the reasons for his return are twofold: to bury claire's ashes and to attend the parole hearing of bobby williams, the prisoner who brutalized wes for nearly forty hours during a prison riot where wes was working as a guard. the resulting injuries left his hands severely damaged, and unable to play the fiddle, which had been the center of his world and his purest joy.
wes is a sanctimonious, judgmental type - a strong silent man who endures life with a restrained stoicism and who, when he does break his silence, is unable to refrain from criticizing other people, particularly his stepson dennis, left behind in black river by wes and claire after he attacked wes when he was just sixteen. now in his thirties, dennis and wes circle each other warily, trying to set aside their unpleasant past in their shared grief and respect for claire's dying wishes.
wes wants to attend the parole hearing, despite being told it is a bad idea. williams claims to have found god in prison and repents his actions on that day twenty years ago. this incenses wes - who, while attending church regularly, insisting upon grace before meals, and performing charitable deeds in the form of frequent platelet donations, has never felt god's presence, despite a lifetime spent trying. the book is kind of a play on the job theme - not about a man who retains his faith while everything is being taken away from him, but a man who keeps trying to find faith despite everything being taken from him. and he resents that a thug like williams is claiming to have been graced with what has eluded him, after desperately going through the motions all these years. wes assumes williams is lying, and that a man capable of the kind of torture he inflicted should not be able to make a claim for divine absolution.
The litany: Dehydration. Concussion. A four-inch laceration above his right ear. A bruise building below his left eye, transitioning from swollen red to dark mottle. Blood crusting black on his lower lip, a broken tooth behind the split flesh. Two fractured ribs, a heel-shaped bruise shading the skin above. Abrasions around his wrists and ankles. Six cigarette burns. Five carved letters. Nine broken fingers. (Claire thinks of it another way: A broken pinkie. A broken ring finger. A broken middle finger. A broken index finger. A broken thumb. Another broken pinkie. Another broken ring finger. Another broken middle finger. Another broken index finger. And she could parse it further still, because she learns that most of those fingers have more than one shattered bone. Condylar fractures, the doctors tell her, split into the joints. Williams didn't just snap. He twisted.)
wes has always been a firm believer in order and codified notions of right and wrong, but the possibility of williams being released into the world grates on him, and his belief in rules and order begins to falter when he finds himself unable to fulfill claire's burial requests because that part of the cemetery has been closed.
Wes used to like rules. He liked knowing what to do, when to do it, how. He'd always felt that folks on the whole didn't know what was best for themselves, and what he did for a living didn't change his mind any. Believed rules helped. But then there were the rules the doctors had when Claire was sick. Visiting hours, when anyone could see a dying woman needed family with her. Rules the insurance company had about which treatments could be tried, and tried again. And now rules against burying a dead woman beside her sister.
wes is being tested at each turn and without the comfort of claire's love, his moral path becomes darker and a bit more slippery.
and all this is great, moody character stuff, but where the book really shines is in the writing about music. wes' father's devotion to bach's partita no. 2 in d minor as the only perfect work of art, who is a competent musician but one whose skills would never match his desires, claire's appreciation of wes' unparalleled gift for the fiddle, wes' memories of how it felt to play onstage with a group, to lose himself in his music alone in his home, to teach dennis when he was a little boy, to listen to others now that he can no longer participate, how music was the closest he ever felt to believing in god, and the unexpected bittersweet opportunity to teach another gifted young man despite being unable to touch the instrument himself - all of this is such incredibly vivid, descriptive, moving writing that you genuinely feel how desolate wes is without the ability to play, to have been unable even to grant claire's delirious deathbed request that he play for her. it's powerful stuff - either very well-researched or coming from a strong firsthand knowledge, but it reads smoothly and seamlessly. and - gack - the details about the tapes - gutpunchy.
it's a lovely, powerful piece of writing. there were many opportunities along the way for the author to have chosen the feel-good route, for some sort of easy-cheesy redemptive scene where everyone goes "awww wookit that character growth." but she doesn't. and that is so freaking admirable. because she doesn't go the other route, either, the one that's all "life is irredeemably fucked and bleak and hopeless." the ending here is earned, and it exists for the character, not the reader. it's a delicate bit of writing uncommon for a debut, and it is greatly appreciated. by me.
two quick things - the entire scene where claire pulls off the side of the road equidistant from her son in black river and her husband in spokane is such gorgeous economy of prose it is worth a mention, but too long to quote.
and did i detect a virginia woolf shout-out?? at one point, this line occurs: She goes out for the candles herself just after the evocation of a minor character named mac dalloway. oh, my...
definitely read this one. it's a little jewel.
come to my blog!
this is a tremendous character study of a man who is not lovable, nor even likable much of the time, but is nonetheless irrefutably compelling.
i have this book on my "grit lit" shelf, but it's a sort of variant of traditional grit lit. there's definitely enough darkness, violence, dysfunction, and criminality to qualify it for the term, but her writing is more meditative than the muscular urgency that so frequently characterizes grit lit. it's not a gender-thing - there's nothing "feminine" about the writing and it's much more gritty than pretty, but it's also more ruminative than others i have on that shelf, and its themes are more mature and nuanced. it's actually a little like The Ploughmen in tone and some of its themes.
wes carver is a hard and damaged 60 years old, a man recently widowed, deep in debt from medical bills, who finds himself returning to black river, montana after almost twenty years of living in spokane with claire, his beloved wife of thirty years. the reasons for his return are twofold: to bury claire's ashes and to attend the parole hearing of bobby williams, the prisoner who brutalized wes for nearly forty hours during a prison riot where wes was working as a guard. the resulting injuries left his hands severely damaged, and unable to play the fiddle, which had been the center of his world and his purest joy.
wes is a sanctimonious, judgmental type - a strong silent man who endures life with a restrained stoicism and who, when he does break his silence, is unable to refrain from criticizing other people, particularly his stepson dennis, left behind in black river by wes and claire after he attacked wes when he was just sixteen. now in his thirties, dennis and wes circle each other warily, trying to set aside their unpleasant past in their shared grief and respect for claire's dying wishes.
wes wants to attend the parole hearing, despite being told it is a bad idea. williams claims to have found god in prison and repents his actions on that day twenty years ago. this incenses wes - who, while attending church regularly, insisting upon grace before meals, and performing charitable deeds in the form of frequent platelet donations, has never felt god's presence, despite a lifetime spent trying. the book is kind of a play on the job theme - not about a man who retains his faith while everything is being taken away from him, but a man who keeps trying to find faith despite everything being taken from him. and he resents that a thug like williams is claiming to have been graced with what has eluded him, after desperately going through the motions all these years. wes assumes williams is lying, and that a man capable of the kind of torture he inflicted should not be able to make a claim for divine absolution.
The litany: Dehydration. Concussion. A four-inch laceration above his right ear. A bruise building below his left eye, transitioning from swollen red to dark mottle. Blood crusting black on his lower lip, a broken tooth behind the split flesh. Two fractured ribs, a heel-shaped bruise shading the skin above. Abrasions around his wrists and ankles. Six cigarette burns. Five carved letters. Nine broken fingers. (Claire thinks of it another way: A broken pinkie. A broken ring finger. A broken middle finger. A broken index finger. A broken thumb. Another broken pinkie. Another broken ring finger. Another broken middle finger. Another broken index finger. And she could parse it further still, because she learns that most of those fingers have more than one shattered bone. Condylar fractures, the doctors tell her, split into the joints. Williams didn't just snap. He twisted.)
wes has always been a firm believer in order and codified notions of right and wrong, but the possibility of williams being released into the world grates on him, and his belief in rules and order begins to falter when he finds himself unable to fulfill claire's burial requests because that part of the cemetery has been closed.
Wes used to like rules. He liked knowing what to do, when to do it, how. He'd always felt that folks on the whole didn't know what was best for themselves, and what he did for a living didn't change his mind any. Believed rules helped. But then there were the rules the doctors had when Claire was sick. Visiting hours, when anyone could see a dying woman needed family with her. Rules the insurance company had about which treatments could be tried, and tried again. And now rules against burying a dead woman beside her sister.
wes is being tested at each turn and without the comfort of claire's love, his moral path becomes darker and a bit more slippery.
and all this is great, moody character stuff, but where the book really shines is in the writing about music. wes' father's devotion to bach's partita no. 2 in d minor as the only perfect work of art, who is a competent musician but one whose skills would never match his desires, claire's appreciation of wes' unparalleled gift for the fiddle, wes' memories of how it felt to play onstage with a group, to lose himself in his music alone in his home, to teach dennis when he was a little boy, to listen to others now that he can no longer participate, how music was the closest he ever felt to believing in god, and the unexpected bittersweet opportunity to teach another gifted young man despite being unable to touch the instrument himself - all of this is such incredibly vivid, descriptive, moving writing that you genuinely feel how desolate wes is without the ability to play, to have been unable even to grant claire's delirious deathbed request that he play for her. it's powerful stuff - either very well-researched or coming from a strong firsthand knowledge, but it reads smoothly and seamlessly. and - gack - the details about the tapes - gutpunchy.
it's a lovely, powerful piece of writing. there were many opportunities along the way for the author to have chosen the feel-good route, for some sort of easy-cheesy redemptive scene where everyone goes "awww wookit that character growth." but she doesn't. and that is so freaking admirable. because she doesn't go the other route, either, the one that's all "life is irredeemably fucked and bleak and hopeless." the ending here is earned, and it exists for the character, not the reader. it's a delicate bit of writing uncommon for a debut, and it is greatly appreciated. by me.
two quick things - the entire scene where claire pulls off the side of the road equidistant from her son in black river and her husband in spokane is such gorgeous economy of prose it is worth a mention, but too long to quote.
and did i detect a virginia woolf shout-out?? at one point, this line occurs: She goes out for the candles herself just after the evocation of a minor character named mac dalloway. oh, my...
definitely read this one. it's a little jewel.
come to my blog!
December 8, 2016
Black River is one of those novels that does not fit snugly into any one category. I see it listed here as a western and there is certainly that feel to it though it is also quite gritty but I would hesitate to label it grit lit. So I have settled on literary. Yes it is most definitely that.
Wes Carver is a stoic man. A man of few words who has trained himself not to show emotion. He is returning to Black River on the heels of his beloved wife’s death. He carries Claire’s ashes with him for interment in Black River, the home she wanted to return to.
Wes and Claire left Black River many years ago after Wes’s heated disagreement with Claire’s son Dennis. One that nearly came to a devastating end. Wes has not spoken with Dennis since but he is steeling himself to do so once again for Claire’s sake.
Years ago before their departure Wes was a Corrections Officer at the penitentiary in Black River. That all ended during a riot that left Wes a prisoner of one of the inmates for almost 40 hours. Over the course of those hours Robert Williams inflicted brutal and grievous torture upon Wes. Torture that robbed Wes of one of his most precious joys in life, his ability to play the fiddle. Now Claire is gone as well as his music.
And it is here as Hulse describes this music and Wes’s love of and ability to play the fiddle that elevates this story to something truly special. It wasn’t as though I could just hear the music she describes, I could feel it in my bones, the notes resonating even deeper within my being.
But the thing about a fiddle was that it was more like the human voice than any other instrument in the world. You could make it sing. You could sustain a note for as long as a breath, longer. You could draw that bow across two strings at once, or slide it from one string to the other in a single downbow, and in doing that you could sound a piercing cry and a low sob at once, joy and sorrow made one.
There is another reason for Wes’s return to Black River, Robert Williams, the man who held him captive so many years ago, the man who stole his music, is now eligible for parole. Wes cannot understand how they could possibly consider releasing the man who inflicted so much pain upon him. Worse still, rumour has it that Williams has found God during his incarceration and is a new man. Wes has searched for God all his life, attending church, being a good and charitable man, always believing but never truly feeling real faith. How then, could someone like Williams possibly attain it?
This story stays with you long after you have read it. Even during the reading there are so many passages and scenes that caused me to stop and think about what I had just read. I have only skimmed the surface here of some of the deeper themes within this book. And I have not even mentioned Scott, the troubled lad that Wes begins to teach how to play the fiddle, even though he is unable to hold it in his hands and show him. Scott, who has troubles of his own in Black River. Troubles that left their toxic stain upon my soul.
My thanks to karen brissette for putting this on my radar with her brilliant review. Read it for yourself here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Highly recommended
Five heart-rending and uplifting stars.
Wes Carver is a stoic man. A man of few words who has trained himself not to show emotion. He is returning to Black River on the heels of his beloved wife’s death. He carries Claire’s ashes with him for interment in Black River, the home she wanted to return to.
Wes and Claire left Black River many years ago after Wes’s heated disagreement with Claire’s son Dennis. One that nearly came to a devastating end. Wes has not spoken with Dennis since but he is steeling himself to do so once again for Claire’s sake.
Years ago before their departure Wes was a Corrections Officer at the penitentiary in Black River. That all ended during a riot that left Wes a prisoner of one of the inmates for almost 40 hours. Over the course of those hours Robert Williams inflicted brutal and grievous torture upon Wes. Torture that robbed Wes of one of his most precious joys in life, his ability to play the fiddle. Now Claire is gone as well as his music.
And it is here as Hulse describes this music and Wes’s love of and ability to play the fiddle that elevates this story to something truly special. It wasn’t as though I could just hear the music she describes, I could feel it in my bones, the notes resonating even deeper within my being.
But the thing about a fiddle was that it was more like the human voice than any other instrument in the world. You could make it sing. You could sustain a note for as long as a breath, longer. You could draw that bow across two strings at once, or slide it from one string to the other in a single downbow, and in doing that you could sound a piercing cry and a low sob at once, joy and sorrow made one.
There is another reason for Wes’s return to Black River, Robert Williams, the man who held him captive so many years ago, the man who stole his music, is now eligible for parole. Wes cannot understand how they could possibly consider releasing the man who inflicted so much pain upon him. Worse still, rumour has it that Williams has found God during his incarceration and is a new man. Wes has searched for God all his life, attending church, being a good and charitable man, always believing but never truly feeling real faith. How then, could someone like Williams possibly attain it?
This story stays with you long after you have read it. Even during the reading there are so many passages and scenes that caused me to stop and think about what I had just read. I have only skimmed the surface here of some of the deeper themes within this book. And I have not even mentioned Scott, the troubled lad that Wes begins to teach how to play the fiddle, even though he is unable to hold it in his hands and show him. Scott, who has troubles of his own in Black River. Troubles that left their toxic stain upon my soul.
My thanks to karen brissette for putting this on my radar with her brilliant review. Read it for yourself here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Highly recommended
Five heart-rending and uplifting stars.
June 16, 2015
Wes Carver is going home to Black River with his wife Claire's ashes and his past on his back. He had worked as a correction officer in a prison that had a "disturbance". That disturbance was a riot where two guards lost their lives and Wes was held prisoner and tortured by inmate Bobby Williams.
Now Wes must face his step-son Dennis who he couldn't live with after Dennis pulled a gun on him at the dinner table.
Wes also received a letter from the prison board that Bobby Williams is up for parole. He has found Jesus and is hoping for release.
This book broke my dang heart. I get pissed off when a book hurts my heart, but I do keep on reading it. I think it hits a bit close to home for me but I'm not going to go into all that this time. Usually I go all giffed out on reviews but I'm just being quiet on this one.
Read it for passages like this:
And she sees the tears building in his eyes, and knows something inside of him will break if they fall. Claire has never seen her husband cry, and she doesn't want to. She rises on her toes to kiss him, and as she does she takes his face in her hands, and she wipes the tears from his eyes before he can know they are there.
and this one:
"When I said he doesn't deserve it, I didn't mean Williams doesn't deserve forgiveness." Wes closed his eyes. The pastor waited. "I mean God. He doesn't deserve God." He opened his eyes again. The pastor is still watching him, and nothing obvious had changed on his features, but Wes saw something different in his eyes. Suspicion, maybe. Or merely sorrow. "A man like that doesn't deserve to believe," Wes said. "when I spent my whole life trying and still can't do it."
Now Wes must face his step-son Dennis who he couldn't live with after Dennis pulled a gun on him at the dinner table.
Wes also received a letter from the prison board that Bobby Williams is up for parole. He has found Jesus and is hoping for release.
This book broke my dang heart. I get pissed off when a book hurts my heart, but I do keep on reading it. I think it hits a bit close to home for me but I'm not going to go into all that this time. Usually I go all giffed out on reviews but I'm just being quiet on this one.
Read it for passages like this:
And she sees the tears building in his eyes, and knows something inside of him will break if they fall. Claire has never seen her husband cry, and she doesn't want to. She rises on her toes to kiss him, and as she does she takes his face in her hands, and she wipes the tears from his eyes before he can know they are there.
and this one:
"When I said he doesn't deserve it, I didn't mean Williams doesn't deserve forgiveness." Wes closed his eyes. The pastor waited. "I mean God. He doesn't deserve God." He opened his eyes again. The pastor is still watching him, and nothing obvious had changed on his features, but Wes saw something different in his eyes. Suspicion, maybe. Or merely sorrow. "A man like that doesn't deserve to believe," Wes said. "when I spent my whole life trying and still can't do it."
April 2, 2020
“Eden Mine”, by Hulse, S. M.
was excellent- so I was happy “Black River” was available at our library.
What a story this was - it’s character driven - packs a punch - and takes place in the rual town of Black River in Montana.
Sixty year old Wesley ( Wes) Carver is a retired Corrections Officer. The poor guy survived during a riot in the prison eighteen years prior...
... but not without torture and permanent damage done to his hands: every finger broken
and burns which left deep scars.
The inmate who did this to Wes was Bob Williams.
At the beginning of the story we meet Wes and his wife, Claire who doesn’t have many days left to live. She is dying of cancer.
They were living in Spokane, Washington, at the time.
Claire wanted her ashes buried back in Black River where her sister Maggie was buried.
After the death of Claire - Wes drives back to Black River — but not only to scatter Claire’s ashes — he wants to testify in Williams parole hearing.
Wes was a fiddle player - and the suffering - both physically and emotionally from having his compromised hands - is almost unbearable.
There’s Wes’s stepson, Dennis, who now lives in Wes & Claire’s old house in Black River - even in the master bedroom that Wes and Claire once shared together.
Dennis inherited the house. He gave Wes his old childhood bedroom to stay in during Wes’s visit back home.
There is a lot of animosity between Dennis and Wes.
The one thing they have in common is that they both loved Claire.
The storytelling is beautifully and emotionally written.
Wes is dealing with quiet rage, and loneliness.
The description of the small town are vivid...
Hulse S.M. is a gorgeous empathetic and compassionate writer.
We look at complex - challenging relationships- broken souls - with broken souls!
This is tragic story — including some unraveling scenes of violence, suicide, love, grief, atonement, and forgiveness.
There is an overall feeling of bittersweet beauty, too...
the music of the fiddle shines light throughout ...
Intimate- introspective- subtle beauty of the writing- takes us on a journey which taps deeply into our humanity.
was excellent- so I was happy “Black River” was available at our library.
What a story this was - it’s character driven - packs a punch - and takes place in the rual town of Black River in Montana.
Sixty year old Wesley ( Wes) Carver is a retired Corrections Officer. The poor guy survived during a riot in the prison eighteen years prior...
... but not without torture and permanent damage done to his hands: every finger broken
and burns which left deep scars.
The inmate who did this to Wes was Bob Williams.
At the beginning of the story we meet Wes and his wife, Claire who doesn’t have many days left to live. She is dying of cancer.
They were living in Spokane, Washington, at the time.
Claire wanted her ashes buried back in Black River where her sister Maggie was buried.
After the death of Claire - Wes drives back to Black River — but not only to scatter Claire’s ashes — he wants to testify in Williams parole hearing.
Wes was a fiddle player - and the suffering - both physically and emotionally from having his compromised hands - is almost unbearable.
There’s Wes’s stepson, Dennis, who now lives in Wes & Claire’s old house in Black River - even in the master bedroom that Wes and Claire once shared together.
Dennis inherited the house. He gave Wes his old childhood bedroom to stay in during Wes’s visit back home.
There is a lot of animosity between Dennis and Wes.
The one thing they have in common is that they both loved Claire.
The storytelling is beautifully and emotionally written.
Wes is dealing with quiet rage, and loneliness.
The description of the small town are vivid...
Hulse S.M. is a gorgeous empathetic and compassionate writer.
We look at complex - challenging relationships- broken souls - with broken souls!
This is tragic story — including some unraveling scenes of violence, suicide, love, grief, atonement, and forgiveness.
There is an overall feeling of bittersweet beauty, too...
the music of the fiddle shines light throughout ...
Intimate- introspective- subtle beauty of the writing- takes us on a journey which taps deeply into our humanity.
July 12, 2024
4+ stars
Set in Montana… Wes, a former Corrections Officer for the prison in Black River where he had been terrorized and much mutilated by a man during a prison riot where he was held hostage 20 yrs ago…. goes back there to bury his wife’s ashes who recently passed.
He must confront the stepson who still lives there who he had a troubled past with…to say the least.
He also is going to a hearing for the man who held him hostage years ago who is eligible for parole.
There is much more going on in this novel and this author is really good…a story of grace, faith, and redemption.
Loved it!
This is a free read with kindle unlimited!
Set in Montana… Wes, a former Corrections Officer for the prison in Black River where he had been terrorized and much mutilated by a man during a prison riot where he was held hostage 20 yrs ago…. goes back there to bury his wife’s ashes who recently passed.
He must confront the stepson who still lives there who he had a troubled past with…to say the least.
He also is going to a hearing for the man who held him hostage years ago who is eligible for parole.
There is much more going on in this novel and this author is really good…a story of grace, faith, and redemption.
Loved it!
This is a free read with kindle unlimited!
August 3, 2024
What is Black River? Well, it's not quite a western. It's not quite a love story. it's not quite a revenge story. It's not quite a sad story, and it's not quite a happy story. So what is it? Black River is a mutt book. It's got a little bit of everything in it.
Our story follows Wes Carver, a former prison gaurd and avid fiddler with some deep seeted feelings of right and wrong, a sever case of PTSD, and a love for the fiddle that is probably stronger then the love he had for his dead wife. The bulk of miss Sarah's story watches Wes, after his wife succumbs to lukimia, as he tries to rebuild his broken relationship with his stepson that he hasnt talked to in 20 years, and come to grips with the probable release of the prisoner that tortured him during a prison riot.
The lovely miss Hulse (a local Spokane girl, I was born and raised in Spokane) has packed this, her debut novel, with so many themes. Love, hate, justice, trauma, forgiveness, healing, PTSD, music, community, happiness, loss, revenge, faith, and redemption, just to name a few.
I am looking forward to reading Eden Mine. Keep up the great work, Sarah!!
Our story follows Wes Carver, a former prison gaurd and avid fiddler with some deep seeted feelings of right and wrong, a sever case of PTSD, and a love for the fiddle that is probably stronger then the love he had for his dead wife. The bulk of miss Sarah's story watches Wes, after his wife succumbs to lukimia, as he tries to rebuild his broken relationship with his stepson that he hasnt talked to in 20 years, and come to grips with the probable release of the prisoner that tortured him during a prison riot.
The lovely miss Hulse (a local Spokane girl, I was born and raised in Spokane) has packed this, her debut novel, with so many themes. Love, hate, justice, trauma, forgiveness, healing, PTSD, music, community, happiness, loss, revenge, faith, and redemption, just to name a few.
I am looking forward to reading Eden Mine. Keep up the great work, Sarah!!
June 13, 2024
I hardly know what to say about this book. The five stars are for this author and her ability to make you care about all these characters, but enjoyment doesn't enter into it. It has to be one of the saddest books I've ever read, because every character was carrying a lot of pain and baggage. Talking things through wasn't an ability any of them had and as a result, there were a lot of misunderstandings and false assumptions that led to even more repercussions.
Still, this is a worthy read. S.M. Hulse is a young woman, but you'd never know that from her portrayals of the men in this book. 3 men, 1 teenage boy, and 2 women form the core of this novel, and the author never misses a beat. She connects all the dots and finishes perfectly, in addition to having perfect descriptions of the landscape. There is a gun in the story that is almost a character in its own right. Not a suspense novel as such, but suspense all the same, as we are fed important details a little at a time. I would form an opinion about someone, then find out later that I was making a few assumptions of my own. A lot of AHA! moments, as Oprah would say.
Hulse is a writer to watch. I'm going to add her to my western literature shelf.
Still, this is a worthy read. S.M. Hulse is a young woman, but you'd never know that from her portrayals of the men in this book. 3 men, 1 teenage boy, and 2 women form the core of this novel, and the author never misses a beat. She connects all the dots and finishes perfectly, in addition to having perfect descriptions of the landscape. There is a gun in the story that is almost a character in its own right. Not a suspense novel as such, but suspense all the same, as we are fed important details a little at a time. I would form an opinion about someone, then find out later that I was making a few assumptions of my own. A lot of AHA! moments, as Oprah would say.
Hulse is a writer to watch. I'm going to add her to my western literature shelf.
September 16, 2015
After 20 years, Wes Carver, A former prison guard is returning to Black River, Montana to bury his wife and attend a parole hearing for the sadistic inmate that held him hostage and tortured him during a prison riot. The horrific abuse that Wes suffered destroyed his hands and robbed him of his ability to play his beloved fiddle, filling him with grief, rage and an inability to move on from the past.
A secondary plot involves Wes Carver’s estranged relationship with his dead wife’s adult son, Dennis, a tense young man abandoned when Wes and his wife, Claire left Black River 20 years before.
This is a taut, contemporary western and a compelling character study using the restrained but potent imagery of Montana to match Wes Carver’s tightly controlled emotions of anguish and outrage and his struggles with a desire for vengeance.
The narrative style reminded me somewhat of Kent Haurf, an author that I’ve always adored for his kind of writing…poignantly economic at times…spare with no fillers.
I loved this moving debut novel by S.M. Hulse. She did a masterful job of conveying Wes’s tormented inner struggles and his uncompromising relationships with the various supporting characters. The language is beautiful! It’s a sad, penetrating and incredibly touching story and I recommend it highly.
A secondary plot involves Wes Carver’s estranged relationship with his dead wife’s adult son, Dennis, a tense young man abandoned when Wes and his wife, Claire left Black River 20 years before.
This is a taut, contemporary western and a compelling character study using the restrained but potent imagery of Montana to match Wes Carver’s tightly controlled emotions of anguish and outrage and his struggles with a desire for vengeance.
The narrative style reminded me somewhat of Kent Haurf, an author that I’ve always adored for his kind of writing…poignantly economic at times…spare with no fillers.
I loved this moving debut novel by S.M. Hulse. She did a masterful job of conveying Wes’s tormented inner struggles and his uncompromising relationships with the various supporting characters. The language is beautiful! It’s a sad, penetrating and incredibly touching story and I recommend it highly.
September 6, 2017
Still waters run deep.
This book was simply stunning.
Wes Carver is a stoic man. After spending most of his life as a Corrections Officer at a prison in Black River, Montana, Wes has returned to the area from Spokane, WA to spread his late wife's ashes. His visit coincides with the timing of a parole hearing for an inmate who left an indelible impression on Wes's life.
"Black River" is the story of a marriage, of faith, of relationships, of hurt, of acceptance, and of painful memories. For me the book had a bit of a slow start, but once I was 1/4 of the way in I was entranced. One of the best books I've read this year.
This book was simply stunning.
Wes Carver is a stoic man. After spending most of his life as a Corrections Officer at a prison in Black River, Montana, Wes has returned to the area from Spokane, WA to spread his late wife's ashes. His visit coincides with the timing of a parole hearing for an inmate who left an indelible impression on Wes's life.
"Black River" is the story of a marriage, of faith, of relationships, of hurt, of acceptance, and of painful memories. For me the book had a bit of a slow start, but once I was 1/4 of the way in I was entranced. One of the best books I've read this year.
July 26, 2015
I do not have a romantic or sentimental bone in my body, but this story really had an impact on me. It touched a chord in my heart, if you really want to know.
'. . . the canyon had a way of holding on to its people.' A small arroyo houses the little town of Black River, Montana. The mountains that rise up on all sides are a thing of beauty, they seem to embrace some people, others feel suffocated by them. Wes Carver is a quiet man. He has some sharp edges, to be sure, but just inside is a good decent man who can be depended on to do the right thing, be it hard or easy. Now, he has lost the last thing he holds dear. The story opens as he returns to Black River with the ashes of his beloved wife, Claire.
The love of music, the ability to make a violin sing like no other. The love of the land, of horses, and of a cherished wife. The sound of a strained silence between a father and his estranged stepson, with only the intrusive ticking of a clock as accompaniment, too loud. Very impressed with this new author, and will be keeping my eyes peeled for her next novel. Still not sure why it is labeled as a Western, so if that would be a reason for you to steer clear of this excellent novel, you needn't rob yourself of a fine read.
'. . . the canyon had a way of holding on to its people.' A small arroyo houses the little town of Black River, Montana. The mountains that rise up on all sides are a thing of beauty, they seem to embrace some people, others feel suffocated by them. Wes Carver is a quiet man. He has some sharp edges, to be sure, but just inside is a good decent man who can be depended on to do the right thing, be it hard or easy. Now, he has lost the last thing he holds dear. The story opens as he returns to Black River with the ashes of his beloved wife, Claire.
The love of music, the ability to make a violin sing like no other. The love of the land, of horses, and of a cherished wife. The sound of a strained silence between a father and his estranged stepson, with only the intrusive ticking of a clock as accompaniment, too loud. Very impressed with this new author, and will be keeping my eyes peeled for her next novel. Still not sure why it is labeled as a Western, so if that would be a reason for you to steer clear of this excellent novel, you needn't rob yourself of a fine read.
January 29, 2015
S.M. Hulse seems an unlikely candidate to take up the mantle of Kent Haruf. After all, Hulse is just 30 years old, young enough to be Haruf’s granddaughter. Her characters and themes should be a world away from the work of that quietly powerful Colorado novelist, who died in November.
And yet I couldn’t stop thinking of Haruf while reading Hulse’s debut, “Black River,” which she wrote as her MFA thesis at the University of Oregon. It’s a modern-day Western that takes place in the long shadow cast by past acts of violence. Sixty-year-old Wes Carver loses his wife, Claire, to leukemia in the opening pages, but his grief is immediately distracted by an invitation to speak at a parole hearing. Twenty years earlier, Wes had been a guard at the prison in Black River, Mont., when a riot broke out. During the standoff, an inmate named Robert Williams carved up Wes’s arms and slowly destroyed his fingers. “Williams’s name still brought with it the memory of the sloppy crunch of breaking bone,” Hulse writes, “still sent Wes’s gut into spasm and set his heart racing.” Now that monster is up for early release. Would Wes like to make a formal objection?
Hulse has positioned this slim novel at the confluence of several extraordinary events that could easily have caused an emotional pileup. In addition to returning his wife’s ashes to Black River at the very moment he must face his old torturer, Wes also becomes reacquainted with his stepson, Dennis, an angry young man he abandoned years earlier after an armed confrontation at the kitchen table. A rape, a train crash, a pair of suicides and some plotted murders hardly lower the story’s temperature.
But “Black River” offers a carefully controlled burn. In this small town where everybody knows somebody employed by the prison or locked up in it, Hulse wants to show us reactions more than events, effects rather than causes. This is a novel about people’s lives closely hitched to the past by law or trauma or sorrow. As the narrative gracefully dips back in time, we hear of fiery conflicts long after the fact. The horrors of the riot and the torture Wes endured appear late and only in grim flashbacks.
That’s a daring, disciplined move that might be manipulative if it didn’t so accurately reflect Wes’s personality. He’s an older man of strict rules and careful procedures that guide the way he behaves and speaks: no crying, no swearing, no outbursts. Hulse keeps the novel tightly focused on him as he hangs around Black River, waiting for the parole hearing, rejecting anyone’s sympathy and bickering with his stepson. “The only thing he and Dennis had in common was that they both loved Claire,” Hulse writes, “and now that she was gone, so too was the fragile, frayed thread that tied them together.” But in fact, the two men are more alike than they realize. Everything Dennis does, “every move he made, it was like he was trying to hold back, keep from exploding. It gave him an odd aura of stillness, but with a great deal of force behind each minute movement.”
Above all this barely contained grief and rage rises a mournful melody of old-time country music. Wes was once a great fiddle player, and the novel’s most sanctified scenes involve memories of practicing and playing the instrument his own father made and passed on to him. (Hulse learned to play while writing this novel.) For many years, Wes says, playing music “was the only thing that ever made me believe there was something else. Something more than just folks going through the motions day after day until there weren’t no more days to come.” The abuse he suffered during the riot robbed him of that, but as he waits for the parole hearing, he befriends a disgruntled teenager who’s keen to learn how to play. This is the novel’s most dynamic relationship, and if it slips a little toward sentimentality, it also provides some necessary vigor to what is otherwise a markedly interior story.
Not that Hulse has any trouble rendering Wes’s mental turmoil in a compelling way. She understands that grief and love are “like the same note played an octave apart, at the same time, ringing and resonating together.” What’s even more impressive is her astute handling of Wes’s tormented faith. Hulse is one of the few novelists working today who seem capable of portraying religion as a natural, integral element of characters’ lives — the way it is for most Americans. Wes is no saint, but he prays, he reads the Bible, he feels the corrective pressure of his religious ideals. He attends the little church in town, although it brings him small comfort: “Wes expected frustration during services — his mind ran a constant stream of objections against his efforts at faith — but the anger was new. There was something pathetically trite in being angry at God, and for such a cliched reason: How could He do this to me?” Wes knows Saint Paul was a convert and also knows he should be willing to entertain the possibility that his own torturer has been reborn, but there’s something intolerable about the thought of Robert Williams enjoying the comforts of faith: “A man like that doesn’t deserve to believe,” Wes says, “when I spent my whole life trying and still can’t do it.”
The soul-crushing anguish beneath that statement may be worse than anything Wes endured in the Black River prison 20 years before — and Hulse has more pain ahead for him. But the possibility of solace, if not redemption, hangs tantalizingly close in this tough, honest novel by a surprisingly wise young writer.
This review first appeared in The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...
And yet I couldn’t stop thinking of Haruf while reading Hulse’s debut, “Black River,” which she wrote as her MFA thesis at the University of Oregon. It’s a modern-day Western that takes place in the long shadow cast by past acts of violence. Sixty-year-old Wes Carver loses his wife, Claire, to leukemia in the opening pages, but his grief is immediately distracted by an invitation to speak at a parole hearing. Twenty years earlier, Wes had been a guard at the prison in Black River, Mont., when a riot broke out. During the standoff, an inmate named Robert Williams carved up Wes’s arms and slowly destroyed his fingers. “Williams’s name still brought with it the memory of the sloppy crunch of breaking bone,” Hulse writes, “still sent Wes’s gut into spasm and set his heart racing.” Now that monster is up for early release. Would Wes like to make a formal objection?
Hulse has positioned this slim novel at the confluence of several extraordinary events that could easily have caused an emotional pileup. In addition to returning his wife’s ashes to Black River at the very moment he must face his old torturer, Wes also becomes reacquainted with his stepson, Dennis, an angry young man he abandoned years earlier after an armed confrontation at the kitchen table. A rape, a train crash, a pair of suicides and some plotted murders hardly lower the story’s temperature.
But “Black River” offers a carefully controlled burn. In this small town where everybody knows somebody employed by the prison or locked up in it, Hulse wants to show us reactions more than events, effects rather than causes. This is a novel about people’s lives closely hitched to the past by law or trauma or sorrow. As the narrative gracefully dips back in time, we hear of fiery conflicts long after the fact. The horrors of the riot and the torture Wes endured appear late and only in grim flashbacks.
That’s a daring, disciplined move that might be manipulative if it didn’t so accurately reflect Wes’s personality. He’s an older man of strict rules and careful procedures that guide the way he behaves and speaks: no crying, no swearing, no outbursts. Hulse keeps the novel tightly focused on him as he hangs around Black River, waiting for the parole hearing, rejecting anyone’s sympathy and bickering with his stepson. “The only thing he and Dennis had in common was that they both loved Claire,” Hulse writes, “and now that she was gone, so too was the fragile, frayed thread that tied them together.” But in fact, the two men are more alike than they realize. Everything Dennis does, “every move he made, it was like he was trying to hold back, keep from exploding. It gave him an odd aura of stillness, but with a great deal of force behind each minute movement.”
Above all this barely contained grief and rage rises a mournful melody of old-time country music. Wes was once a great fiddle player, and the novel’s most sanctified scenes involve memories of practicing and playing the instrument his own father made and passed on to him. (Hulse learned to play while writing this novel.) For many years, Wes says, playing music “was the only thing that ever made me believe there was something else. Something more than just folks going through the motions day after day until there weren’t no more days to come.” The abuse he suffered during the riot robbed him of that, but as he waits for the parole hearing, he befriends a disgruntled teenager who’s keen to learn how to play. This is the novel’s most dynamic relationship, and if it slips a little toward sentimentality, it also provides some necessary vigor to what is otherwise a markedly interior story.
Not that Hulse has any trouble rendering Wes’s mental turmoil in a compelling way. She understands that grief and love are “like the same note played an octave apart, at the same time, ringing and resonating together.” What’s even more impressive is her astute handling of Wes’s tormented faith. Hulse is one of the few novelists working today who seem capable of portraying religion as a natural, integral element of characters’ lives — the way it is for most Americans. Wes is no saint, but he prays, he reads the Bible, he feels the corrective pressure of his religious ideals. He attends the little church in town, although it brings him small comfort: “Wes expected frustration during services — his mind ran a constant stream of objections against his efforts at faith — but the anger was new. There was something pathetically trite in being angry at God, and for such a cliched reason: How could He do this to me?” Wes knows Saint Paul was a convert and also knows he should be willing to entertain the possibility that his own torturer has been reborn, but there’s something intolerable about the thought of Robert Williams enjoying the comforts of faith: “A man like that doesn’t deserve to believe,” Wes says, “when I spent my whole life trying and still can’t do it.”
The soul-crushing anguish beneath that statement may be worse than anything Wes endured in the Black River prison 20 years before — and Hulse has more pain ahead for him. But the possibility of solace, if not redemption, hangs tantalizingly close in this tough, honest novel by a surprisingly wise young writer.
This review first appeared in The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...
June 22, 2024
A stunning debut that goes straight to my ‘books-that-deserve-more-notice’ shelf. But because I need to sort through the emotional complexities of this novel before I write my thoughts, I’ll leave you with my friend Diane’s excellent review. She pretty well nails it.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
*6/22/24:*
Nestled in a narrow canyon among the majestic mountains of western Montana lies the small town of Black River, home of Montana State Prison - the site of a 1992 prison riot that resulted in two officers killed and one held hostage and tortured for thirty-nine hours. That third officer is our main protagonist, Corrections Officer, musician, husband, brother-in-law and stepfather Wesley Carver, and this is his complicated story. Hulse parcels out the details of Wes’s life in small, slow increments that hold some of the most horrible and some of the most beautiful scenes I’ve ever read.
As Diane mentioned in her review, the story centers around three men - Wes, his stepson Dennis, and his brother-in-law Arthur; one teenage boy named Scott; and two women - Wes’s wife Claire and Scott’s mother Molly. Each of these people has a cross to bear. A fiddle, a revolver, and a horse named Rio round out the primary characters in this powerful story of love, faith, anger, forgiveness and music. It was a finalist for the 2016 Pen/Hemingway Award, losing to Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel ‘Eileen.’ Ms. Hulse is now on my list of authors to watch.
“Wesley is a good man. Dennis is a good boy. Why is this not enough?” ~ Claire Carver
“Tell me, Reverend, you think someone without a soul can find God?” ~ Wesley Carver
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
*6/22/24:*
Nestled in a narrow canyon among the majestic mountains of western Montana lies the small town of Black River, home of Montana State Prison - the site of a 1992 prison riot that resulted in two officers killed and one held hostage and tortured for thirty-nine hours. That third officer is our main protagonist, Corrections Officer, musician, husband, brother-in-law and stepfather Wesley Carver, and this is his complicated story. Hulse parcels out the details of Wes’s life in small, slow increments that hold some of the most horrible and some of the most beautiful scenes I’ve ever read.
As Diane mentioned in her review, the story centers around three men - Wes, his stepson Dennis, and his brother-in-law Arthur; one teenage boy named Scott; and two women - Wes’s wife Claire and Scott’s mother Molly. Each of these people has a cross to bear. A fiddle, a revolver, and a horse named Rio round out the primary characters in this powerful story of love, faith, anger, forgiveness and music. It was a finalist for the 2016 Pen/Hemingway Award, losing to Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel ‘Eileen.’ Ms. Hulse is now on my list of authors to watch.
“Wesley is a good man. Dennis is a good boy. Why is this not enough?” ~ Claire Carver
“Tell me, Reverend, you think someone without a soul can find God?” ~ Wesley Carver
November 17, 2014
Black River by S. M. Hulse is one of the very best books I’ve had the privilege to read. I gasped when I read the last page and know that by reading this novel I’ve been witness to great beauty.
The story is about several things: love, loss, faith, redemption, revenge, and the connections between people.
Wes used to work as a corrections officer at the Black River Prison in Montana. His beloved wife, Claire, has just died from leukemia. Wes is headed back to Black River to scatter her ashes with his stepson Dennis. The cost of Claire’s extended care has made him broke, behind in his mortgage payments, and struggling just to stay afloat financially. His grief is profound. Dennis and Wes have not gotten along since Dennis’s teenage years and their relationship has been strewn with violence and heartbreak.
In 1992 there was a prison riot and Wes was taken captive and tortured by prisoner Bobby Williams for 39 hours. Williams burned Wes with cigarettes and broke all his fingers in a particularly brutal way. He also carved his name into Wes’s arm. For Wes, those 39 hours were life-altering, not only because of the trauma, but because he had been a very fine fiddler. He loves music and after the ‘incident’, as it is called in Black River, he was never able to play again. Williams stole something that was very dear to Wes. In fact, the last thing Claire asked of Wes before she died was for him to play the fiddle for her and he was unable to fulfill her wish.
Now, as Wes heads to Black River, he carries an envelope in his glove compartment. In the envelope is a letter stating that Williams is up for parole. Additionally, Wes has heard through the grapevine that Williams has found God. How can a man who did what he did find God, Wes wonders. Wes plans to testify against Williams at the hearing and is sick at heart that Williams might go free.
There are no quotation marks in the book yet the writer is startling in her ability to provide the reader with beautiful and right-on dialogue. I felt like I was THERE, sitting in Wes’s body and feeling what he felt. The characterizations are so good that it boggles my mind that this is a debut novel. Even the town of Black River takes on a life of its own. It is a very rare author who takes me over completely as Hulse did. I applaud her writing and can’t wait for more.
The story is about several things: love, loss, faith, redemption, revenge, and the connections between people.
Wes used to work as a corrections officer at the Black River Prison in Montana. His beloved wife, Claire, has just died from leukemia. Wes is headed back to Black River to scatter her ashes with his stepson Dennis. The cost of Claire’s extended care has made him broke, behind in his mortgage payments, and struggling just to stay afloat financially. His grief is profound. Dennis and Wes have not gotten along since Dennis’s teenage years and their relationship has been strewn with violence and heartbreak.
In 1992 there was a prison riot and Wes was taken captive and tortured by prisoner Bobby Williams for 39 hours. Williams burned Wes with cigarettes and broke all his fingers in a particularly brutal way. He also carved his name into Wes’s arm. For Wes, those 39 hours were life-altering, not only because of the trauma, but because he had been a very fine fiddler. He loves music and after the ‘incident’, as it is called in Black River, he was never able to play again. Williams stole something that was very dear to Wes. In fact, the last thing Claire asked of Wes before she died was for him to play the fiddle for her and he was unable to fulfill her wish.
Now, as Wes heads to Black River, he carries an envelope in his glove compartment. In the envelope is a letter stating that Williams is up for parole. Additionally, Wes has heard through the grapevine that Williams has found God. How can a man who did what he did find God, Wes wonders. Wes plans to testify against Williams at the hearing and is sick at heart that Williams might go free.
There are no quotation marks in the book yet the writer is startling in her ability to provide the reader with beautiful and right-on dialogue. I felt like I was THERE, sitting in Wes’s body and feeling what he felt. The characterizations are so good that it boggles my mind that this is a debut novel. Even the town of Black River takes on a life of its own. It is a very rare author who takes me over completely as Hulse did. I applaud her writing and can’t wait for more.
March 4, 2015
I really, really liked this book. I've known men like Wes Carver. Stoic. The whole still waters run deep. Hard to get to know. Not all that likable. Guarded. A little sad. It seems like a hard way to be, a hard way to move around in the world.
Anyway, I am linking you to Karen's review because it is outstanding and it will tell you everything you need to know.
Anyway, I am linking you to Karen's review because it is outstanding and it will tell you everything you need to know.
March 24, 2015
“You grow up in this town, you go to work at the prison. That’s how it works.” Back in the town of Black River, Montana after his wife’s agonizing death from leukemia, Wesley Carver must face the trauma he experienced as a prison guard when he was held hostage and tortured during an inmate riot. Twenty years later, he still suffers crippling pain. Fiddling, once his beloved hobby, is an impossibility. Now his attacker is up for parole, and Wes plans to attend the hearing and discourage the jury from letting this monster go free, even though his stepson and brother-in-law almost beg him not to go.
At first you might think you’re reading a revenge story, but this is something subtler and sweeter than that. It reminded me a fair bit of The Animals by Christian Kiefer. Similar strong themes are present in both: the enduring consequences of our actions, the reality of pain, and the forces that bind fathers and sons – or male friends – together versus those that drive them apart. At times I felt the examination of father-to-son inheritance was a little too overt, especially in the subplot about a troubled teenager Wes takes under his wing.
Still, Hulse writes like a pro; you’d never guess this is a debut novel. You might also be surprised to learn that she’s a woman, given how gritty and masculine her story is. What a shame that she had to go by her initials, rather than Sarah, to be taken seriously in this genre, even though she’s on a level with Philipp Meyer. She’s a strong talent to watch in future.
Related reading: The High Divide and The Bully of Order are two more recommended father-and-son Westerns (both historical). On the loss of a career in music, see The Virtuoso by Virginia Burges.
At first you might think you’re reading a revenge story, but this is something subtler and sweeter than that. It reminded me a fair bit of The Animals by Christian Kiefer. Similar strong themes are present in both: the enduring consequences of our actions, the reality of pain, and the forces that bind fathers and sons – or male friends – together versus those that drive them apart. At times I felt the examination of father-to-son inheritance was a little too overt, especially in the subplot about a troubled teenager Wes takes under his wing.
Still, Hulse writes like a pro; you’d never guess this is a debut novel. You might also be surprised to learn that she’s a woman, given how gritty and masculine her story is. What a shame that she had to go by her initials, rather than Sarah, to be taken seriously in this genre, even though she’s on a level with Philipp Meyer. She’s a strong talent to watch in future.
Related reading: The High Divide and The Bully of Order are two more recommended father-and-son Westerns (both historical). On the loss of a career in music, see The Virtuoso by Virginia Burges.
July 27, 2019
At year's end, this book better be on the annual list of best debut novels. Simple as that. An amazing achievement for a writer, even if it wasn't their first, and any author would be proud to have written this story. Not only is the English beautiful and the story nuanced, but the delivery is at times mesmerizing. She refused to take the easy road, delivering subtle twists and riding down paths that perhaps the reader may not want to follow but that made the story stronger. Not once did I feel that dialogue from any of the characters seemed out of place or inconsistent. Even the few stretches of the story told from the protagonist's wife's point of view (and all one can do is nod your head in acknowledgement of her feelings) strengthened the whole. If I could assign it 4.5 on the GR scale, I would. Perhaps even a 5. Probably better than any writer I have taken up recently, she captured the intense anger, hurt, sadness, uncertainty held within a basically good, intense man who experienced horrible brutalization and deepest loss, brought to head by an even greater shot to his heart. A difficult, taciturn, laconic, god-fearing man, who once was a master fiddle player, Wesley Carver struggles in his strained relationship with his now-grown stepson, place in a changed world, memories of the worst day of his life, attempts to reach out to a troubled soul. . . losses and experiences that would unmoor almost any person. Even when there is awful symmetry in the narrative, it doesn't seem forced or contrived. This is not an easy read, as one will wrestle with questions of faith, familial conflict, fury, and forgiveness. There are some paths the overly sensitive may not want to tread. People who have been bullied, incarcerated, or served as corrections officers, suffered from the inexplicable actions of others, or lived through the passing of loved ones may have to put the book down at times. Right from the start Hulse sends the reader down a melancholy trail. And yet, when finished, you realize you have read what might be a small masterpiece---definitely a superior piece of art---and I encourage you to read this book. If there are weaknesses (and what effort doesn't), I didn't readily see them. A few paragraphs, in my opinion, were damned near personal and perfect.
May 31, 2016
A majestic Montana landscape provides the backdrop for this solid and slow moving story of a grieving man with nothing left to lose. Wes Carver has no plans for the future beyond spreading his wife’s ashes and testifying to the parole board to keep a violent prisoner behind bars. He returns to Black River after 18 years and the past falls away.
Contrary to the marketed description of the book, I found the heart of this story in the rocky relationship between Wes and his stepson Dennis, whom he raised from the age of four. Now that his wife Claire is gone, can these two men somehow breach the distance created by anger and time? Flashbacks reveal old conflicts that eventually resulted in the final break between them, and this is where the story fell short for me. I wanted to better understand the animosity that lead to that shocking final act and then the impassable rift. Unfortunately I was disappointed in that regard, which made the drama feel a bit contrived. You know there’s intense feeling on both sides but you never quite understand why.
In her debut novel Hulse has found a dramatic style which I mostly enjoyed, even if I felt some of her tactics were overused. Short, curt phrases in both dialogue and narrative work well to emphasize the tension, that sense of fury unleashed. That said, a little goes a long way. Hoping that in future works she will use more restraint to that end.
Overall, quite an emotional story full of thoughtful reflection. It wasn’t an easy or light read but most of the good ones aren’t.
Contrary to the marketed description of the book, I found the heart of this story in the rocky relationship between Wes and his stepson Dennis, whom he raised from the age of four. Now that his wife Claire is gone, can these two men somehow breach the distance created by anger and time? Flashbacks reveal old conflicts that eventually resulted in the final break between them, and this is where the story fell short for me. I wanted to better understand the animosity that lead to that shocking final act and then the impassable rift. Unfortunately I was disappointed in that regard, which made the drama feel a bit contrived. You know there’s intense feeling on both sides but you never quite understand why.
In her debut novel Hulse has found a dramatic style which I mostly enjoyed, even if I felt some of her tactics were overused. Short, curt phrases in both dialogue and narrative work well to emphasize the tension, that sense of fury unleashed. That said, a little goes a long way. Hoping that in future works she will use more restraint to that end.
Overall, quite an emotional story full of thoughtful reflection. It wasn’t an easy or light read but most of the good ones aren’t.
February 6, 2020
Beautiful! Painful and often heartbreaking character study of family and loss. I wouldn't miss the next novel Ms. Hulse puts forth.
June 14, 2024
I wasn’t shocked that I loved this book bc I had a feeling it was going to be a perfect read for me. What’s absolutely shocking is this is a debut by the author. The place and her characters are perfectly fleshed out. This one is hard on the soul but worth it.
January 10, 2018
Edited/revised as of 01/10/2018:
I kicked off the new year by revisiting this melancholy, bittersweet novel about music, prison, forgiveness, and fathers and sons. Black River has the same heart as the bluegrass music that's threaded throughout it; I'm almost inclined to say that if you like bluegrass, old school country, Johnny Cash, etc., you'll like this.
Wesley hates coming here, but he now occupies this place as though it is their home, with none of the deference he showed the staff in those first days and weeks. They have become used to the hospital in different ways, she and her husband. Claire feels less like herself here. Meeker. She lets people usher her from room to room, guide her through the stages of her illness. Wesley treats the hospital as territory to be conquered. He is impatient, uninterested--for the first time in his life--in policies of procedures. Wesley is one of those Montana men whose mouths hardly move when they speak, for whom words are precious things they are loath to give up. Here, though, she has heard him raise his voice at the nurses' station loud enough that she can hear him in her room down the hall. Here he has interrogated and threatened and--once--even begged. Sometimes, when he thinks she is asleep, he prays aloud. He is confrontational with God.
Wes Carver's beloved wife, Claire, has just died after a prolonged struggle with cancer and, broke, unemployed, lonely, and at loose ends, Wes has returned to Black River to bury her. They lived there for years while Wes worked as a corrections officer at the local prison--one of the town's few employers--and the two of them raised Claire's son, Dennis. Wes's fiddle-playing was something of a local legend back then: a way to unwind from his work, a way to show his love for Claire, and a way to connect with Dennis. But being captured, held, and tortured during a prison riot cause the ruination of his hands--every finger but one broken--and ended his ability to play the fiddle with any amount of accuracy and grace. Soon after, his relationship with Dennis ended, too, as an eruption of violence between the two of them split up the family and sent Claire and Wes out of Black River seemingly for good.
But now, Wes is back, ostensibly reunited with Dennis only for the sake of burying Claire or scattering her ashes. What he doesn't mention, at least at first, is the letter in his pocket informing him that the man who tortured him is coming up for parole. He's welcome to speak at the board, if he'd like to. With that hanging over his head, he stays in Black River longer than he'd meant to--long enough to get tangled up in Dennis's new life, with the troubled teenage boy Dennis is trying to mentor, and with his own memories.
Wes judges people harshly, with the confidence of someone who believes that he's simply seeing and saying the way things are. He's a lifelong churchgoer who has never, despite his best intentions, been able to believe in God, and he mostly can't believe in the people around him either, once they give him any reason to doubt. This means that all his relationships, or at least all of them with people less unshakeable than his wife, are always in danger of being crushed under the weight of his disapproval. It's like the two sides of him are the music--graceful, beautiful, generous--and the prison--ruthless, unyielding, corrective--and both of those are tested on his return to Black River, firstly by whether or not he can possibly believe that the man who hurt him has changed, or if he can even pass up the chance to deliberately prolong his anger, and secondly by whether or not he can achieve any kind of peace with his son and surrogate grandson, who both have more emotional volatility and vulnerability--which Wes has trouble with all on its own--and the overhanging legacy of criminality. (Dennis is the child of Claire and her rapist; Scott, the teenager he's trying to help, is unique in town for having a father in the prison, rather than just working there.)
Black River effectively becomes a kind of suspense novel of moral choices. The question is not "what will happen?" but "what will he do?", and the answers are never obvious. It makes for a restrained, elegiac, thoughtful, and surprisingly tense novel.
I kicked off the new year by revisiting this melancholy, bittersweet novel about music, prison, forgiveness, and fathers and sons. Black River has the same heart as the bluegrass music that's threaded throughout it; I'm almost inclined to say that if you like bluegrass, old school country, Johnny Cash, etc., you'll like this.
Wesley hates coming here, but he now occupies this place as though it is their home, with none of the deference he showed the staff in those first days and weeks. They have become used to the hospital in different ways, she and her husband. Claire feels less like herself here. Meeker. She lets people usher her from room to room, guide her through the stages of her illness. Wesley treats the hospital as territory to be conquered. He is impatient, uninterested--for the first time in his life--in policies of procedures. Wesley is one of those Montana men whose mouths hardly move when they speak, for whom words are precious things they are loath to give up. Here, though, she has heard him raise his voice at the nurses' station loud enough that she can hear him in her room down the hall. Here he has interrogated and threatened and--once--even begged. Sometimes, when he thinks she is asleep, he prays aloud. He is confrontational with God.
Wes Carver's beloved wife, Claire, has just died after a prolonged struggle with cancer and, broke, unemployed, lonely, and at loose ends, Wes has returned to Black River to bury her. They lived there for years while Wes worked as a corrections officer at the local prison--one of the town's few employers--and the two of them raised Claire's son, Dennis. Wes's fiddle-playing was something of a local legend back then: a way to unwind from his work, a way to show his love for Claire, and a way to connect with Dennis. But being captured, held, and tortured during a prison riot cause the ruination of his hands--every finger but one broken--and ended his ability to play the fiddle with any amount of accuracy and grace. Soon after, his relationship with Dennis ended, too, as an eruption of violence between the two of them split up the family and sent Claire and Wes out of Black River seemingly for good.
But now, Wes is back, ostensibly reunited with Dennis only for the sake of burying Claire or scattering her ashes. What he doesn't mention, at least at first, is the letter in his pocket informing him that the man who tortured him is coming up for parole. He's welcome to speak at the board, if he'd like to. With that hanging over his head, he stays in Black River longer than he'd meant to--long enough to get tangled up in Dennis's new life, with the troubled teenage boy Dennis is trying to mentor, and with his own memories.
Wes judges people harshly, with the confidence of someone who believes that he's simply seeing and saying the way things are. He's a lifelong churchgoer who has never, despite his best intentions, been able to believe in God, and he mostly can't believe in the people around him either, once they give him any reason to doubt. This means that all his relationships, or at least all of them with people less unshakeable than his wife, are always in danger of being crushed under the weight of his disapproval. It's like the two sides of him are the music--graceful, beautiful, generous--and the prison--ruthless, unyielding, corrective--and both of those are tested on his return to Black River, firstly by whether or not he can possibly believe that the man who hurt him has changed, or if he can even pass up the chance to deliberately prolong his anger, and secondly by whether or not he can achieve any kind of peace with his son and surrogate grandson, who both have more emotional volatility and vulnerability--which Wes has trouble with all on its own--and the overhanging legacy of criminality. (Dennis is the child of Claire and her rapist; Scott, the teenager he's trying to help, is unique in town for having a father in the prison, rather than just working there.)
Black River effectively becomes a kind of suspense novel of moral choices. The question is not "what will happen?" but "what will he do?", and the answers are never obvious. It makes for a restrained, elegiac, thoughtful, and surprisingly tense novel.
March 26, 2015
I read this story about fall to winter while winter turned to spring outside.
Ah, juxtaposition, how I love you.
I read this too soon after reading karen's review so knew what to expect. I'd wanted to let that information seep back out of my brain so that this would be a surprising story when I got to it some snowy, winter afternoon. Oh well, that didn't mar my enjoyment in the least.
Forgiveness is so hard for some people.
I'm one of them.
Wes is, too. Wes is the old man in this tale, that quiet, seething, old curmudgeon who is mostly unlovable except to his wife and his friends. His wife has just died, his friends are no longer his friends, and he has to return home to reconcile with his step-son so they can scatter their beloved's ashes. Also, Wes, former fiddle player and self-taught musician, has mangled hands due to a vicious inmate tying him down and torturing him for 39 hours during a riot in the prison where Wes had once been a correctional officer. His broken fingers kept him from fulfilling his wife's last request, that he play for her the song he had composed so many years ago while she lie dying.
That's a lot to forgive.
But it's not just the inmate, who, by the way, is up for parole, that occupies his mind. There's his father who committed suicide when Wes was young. There's his step-son who, for reasons unknown to Wes, though maybe better understood by the reader, caused a rift that broke their family, there's that damned cancer that killed his wife, there's the lost friendship between him and his former brother-in-law who was also part of the band in which Wes used to play when he could still play his fiddle and the lost lives of two of the other guards who had been involved in that long-ago riot. They ways of men and boys. Guns. Trains. God. All these things lay heavy upon Wes' mind.
But to Wes, everything is black and white. There are rules and rule breakers. Good and evil. And this is part of the reason he is a bitter, burdened old man, angry at the world and keeping it all inside.
Everything conspires to make him face all his problems while he waits for the parole hearing of the inmate who crippled him 20 years before.
Old dogs can learn new tricks but it is an uphill battle, one that comes with setbacks, bruises, knocks and bumps.
This wasn't as hurty as I thought it would be. I found it hopeful, in an understated way. It might break a soul to let go of the past, to give up the beliefs that have always sustained and protected, to come to terms with not having the heart's most needed desire, to forge a new life going forward but it can be done. In fact, it probably should be done to help keep others from trudging such a lonely road.
Ah, juxtaposition, how I love you.
I read this too soon after reading karen's review so knew what to expect. I'd wanted to let that information seep back out of my brain so that this would be a surprising story when I got to it some snowy, winter afternoon. Oh well, that didn't mar my enjoyment in the least.
Forgiveness is so hard for some people.
I'm one of them.
Wes is, too. Wes is the old man in this tale, that quiet, seething, old curmudgeon who is mostly unlovable except to his wife and his friends. His wife has just died, his friends are no longer his friends, and he has to return home to reconcile with his step-son so they can scatter their beloved's ashes. Also, Wes, former fiddle player and self-taught musician, has mangled hands due to a vicious inmate tying him down and torturing him for 39 hours during a riot in the prison where Wes had once been a correctional officer. His broken fingers kept him from fulfilling his wife's last request, that he play for her the song he had composed so many years ago while she lie dying.
That's a lot to forgive.
But it's not just the inmate, who, by the way, is up for parole, that occupies his mind. There's his father who committed suicide when Wes was young. There's his step-son who, for reasons unknown to Wes, though maybe better understood by the reader, caused a rift that broke their family, there's that damned cancer that killed his wife, there's the lost friendship between him and his former brother-in-law who was also part of the band in which Wes used to play when he could still play his fiddle and the lost lives of two of the other guards who had been involved in that long-ago riot. They ways of men and boys. Guns. Trains. God. All these things lay heavy upon Wes' mind.
But to Wes, everything is black and white. There are rules and rule breakers. Good and evil. And this is part of the reason he is a bitter, burdened old man, angry at the world and keeping it all inside.
Everything conspires to make him face all his problems while he waits for the parole hearing of the inmate who crippled him 20 years before.
Old dogs can learn new tricks but it is an uphill battle, one that comes with setbacks, bruises, knocks and bumps.
This wasn't as hurty as I thought it would be. I found it hopeful, in an understated way. It might break a soul to let go of the past, to give up the beliefs that have always sustained and protected, to come to terms with not having the heart's most needed desire, to forge a new life going forward but it can be done. In fact, it probably should be done to help keep others from trudging such a lonely road.
November 24, 2014
Brick-and-mortar prisons have long been used in books as a metaphor for a character’s own sense of emotional imprisonment, and so it is here, in S.M. Hulse’s assured debut.
We learn early on that former CO (corrections officer) Wes Carver, a stoic man with a stronger sense of right and wrong than most, has long been emotionally imprisoned by a fateful few days where he was held hostage in a prison riot. During that time, his fingers were shattered, depriving him of his greatest joy in life: playing his father’s handcrafted fiddle, which he did exceedingly well. When we first meet up with him, he has suffered another massive loss: the death of his wife Claire from leukemia.
This opening setup brings Wes back to his hometown Black River to bury his wife and come face-to-face with his estranged stepson Dennis – now grown -- and also his memories: his torturer is now up for parole.
The rest of the plotting is for the reader to discover. The themes are fair game, and they are universal: is there ever a point when a bad person is entitled to forgiveness? The inmate Williams claims to have found God, but as Wes relates to his pastor, “A man like that doesn’t deserve to believe when I spent my whole life trying and still can’t do it.”
Black River explores what is justice? Can a brutal inmate by freed from the physical walls that surround him when his victim is placed forever into an emotional prison of his own? What is the appropriate punishment when an inmate takes away the only voice that Wes Carver really has – his eloquent fiddle playing (in contrast to his often ineloquent speech). What does it take to move on and is there ever a sense of redemption and self-forgiveness?
From time to time, the plotting is a little too defined (for example, both Wes and his stepson play out their ancient battle through a damaged teen named Scott. Dennis becomes a surrogate father while Wes sets himself up as a mentor). But for the most part, this is a wonderful debut that portends great things for Ms. Hulse.
We learn early on that former CO (corrections officer) Wes Carver, a stoic man with a stronger sense of right and wrong than most, has long been emotionally imprisoned by a fateful few days where he was held hostage in a prison riot. During that time, his fingers were shattered, depriving him of his greatest joy in life: playing his father’s handcrafted fiddle, which he did exceedingly well. When we first meet up with him, he has suffered another massive loss: the death of his wife Claire from leukemia.
This opening setup brings Wes back to his hometown Black River to bury his wife and come face-to-face with his estranged stepson Dennis – now grown -- and also his memories: his torturer is now up for parole.
The rest of the plotting is for the reader to discover. The themes are fair game, and they are universal: is there ever a point when a bad person is entitled to forgiveness? The inmate Williams claims to have found God, but as Wes relates to his pastor, “A man like that doesn’t deserve to believe when I spent my whole life trying and still can’t do it.”
Black River explores what is justice? Can a brutal inmate by freed from the physical walls that surround him when his victim is placed forever into an emotional prison of his own? What is the appropriate punishment when an inmate takes away the only voice that Wes Carver really has – his eloquent fiddle playing (in contrast to his often ineloquent speech). What does it take to move on and is there ever a sense of redemption and self-forgiveness?
From time to time, the plotting is a little too defined (for example, both Wes and his stepson play out their ancient battle through a damaged teen named Scott. Dennis becomes a surrogate father while Wes sets himself up as a mentor). But for the most part, this is a wonderful debut that portends great things for Ms. Hulse.
January 8, 2016
At its surface, Black River is a sleepy, almost lethargic story, and beneath that are dark undercurrents of tension and fear, the kind of emotion that you don’t just read, you feel. I wish I could do this book justice, but I can’t. S.M. Hulse’s debut is, quite simply, stunning—stunning and brutal, in ways I never thought I could experience through fiction. I honestly think this novel is a masterpiece.
Emotions in the book run high and sharp, and in ways you wouldn’t expect. It wasn’t the scenes where Wesley, a prison corrections officer, was being tortured during a prison riot that got me. It was the scene where Wesley and his estranged stepson talk about Wesley’s scars. It was the scene where Wesley’s wife catches him cutting in the bathroom. It was the scene where Wesley covers a dying horse with a blanket and sits with it in the field. Black River finds the tension and the fragility in little moments, and draws them out.
Hulse is, without a doubt, an author who knows what she’s doing. She has control over her language, and can juggle more than one thing at once. She can create a protagonist who has faults so huge the reader second-guesses if Wesley is even a good person, but in the next paragraph, the author twists things again until you want everything for Wesley, to atone for what’s been taken away.
The prose, the characterization, the emotion. It’s all there, and with the weight of an author who writes with authority. Hulse didn’t set Black River in Montana because she could—she did it because that setting is where this story needed to happen, and that the author understands the landscape and the culture is evident. The establishment of place and atmosphere in this book is subtle, often only a phrase or a brief image, but it’s powerful, providing a stark backdrop for Wesley’s narrative.
This novel is an intense, painful character study that withholds nothing. S.M. Hulse writes with clear, savage emotion and an understanding of her characters that is honestly brilliant. Black River is dark and somber and tough, a combination that’s managed perfectly, and to great effect.
Emotions in the book run high and sharp, and in ways you wouldn’t expect. It wasn’t the scenes where Wesley, a prison corrections officer, was being tortured during a prison riot that got me. It was the scene where Wesley and his estranged stepson talk about Wesley’s scars. It was the scene where Wesley’s wife catches him cutting in the bathroom. It was the scene where Wesley covers a dying horse with a blanket and sits with it in the field. Black River finds the tension and the fragility in little moments, and draws them out.
Hulse is, without a doubt, an author who knows what she’s doing. She has control over her language, and can juggle more than one thing at once. She can create a protagonist who has faults so huge the reader second-guesses if Wesley is even a good person, but in the next paragraph, the author twists things again until you want everything for Wesley, to atone for what’s been taken away.
The prose, the characterization, the emotion. It’s all there, and with the weight of an author who writes with authority. Hulse didn’t set Black River in Montana because she could—she did it because that setting is where this story needed to happen, and that the author understands the landscape and the culture is evident. The establishment of place and atmosphere in this book is subtle, often only a phrase or a brief image, but it’s powerful, providing a stark backdrop for Wesley’s narrative.
This novel is an intense, painful character study that withholds nothing. S.M. Hulse writes with clear, savage emotion and an understanding of her characters that is honestly brilliant. Black River is dark and somber and tough, a combination that’s managed perfectly, and to great effect.
March 26, 2016
3.5 stars - It was really good.
What a compelling, but heartbreaking, character study. The writing was beautiful yet simple, the story slow yet engaging. The author artistically displays the power of the love of a woman and the love of the land, both sharply contrasted against the atrocities that people are capable of senselessly inflicting on others.
I can imagine that this one will foster a very thought provoking discussion at book club. Kudos to the author for not having a predictable plot or writing easy outs for the characters in her debut novel!
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Favorite Quote: Maybe to really love something you had to be born with it, had it pressed into your soul before you even took a breath, so that it was something you could neither explain nor deny.
First Sentence: The music, she thinks, is supposed to comfort.
What a compelling, but heartbreaking, character study. The writing was beautiful yet simple, the story slow yet engaging. The author artistically displays the power of the love of a woman and the love of the land, both sharply contrasted against the atrocities that people are capable of senselessly inflicting on others.
I can imagine that this one will foster a very thought provoking discussion at book club. Kudos to the author for not having a predictable plot or writing easy outs for the characters in her debut novel!
-------------------------------------------
Favorite Quote: Maybe to really love something you had to be born with it, had it pressed into your soul before you even took a breath, so that it was something you could neither explain nor deny.
First Sentence: The music, she thinks, is supposed to comfort.
December 6, 2017
Onvan : Black River - Nevisande : S.M. Hulse - ISBN : 544309871 - ISBN13 : 9780544309876 - Dar 240 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2015
March 18, 2015
4.5 stars
Beautifully written novel of emotional force that I will not forget. There are several themes going on here that the author expertly interweaves without spelling it all out for the reader.
Wes returns to Black River with his wife's ashes and to a step son he hasn't spoken to in 20 years as well as a parole hearing for a monster who physically tortured him when he worked as a prison guard. The story slowly unfolds and keeps the reader wanting to know more about Wes and his past as well as his future. I loved the pace of the short novel. Interspersed are a few other interesting characters that add interest and surprises. Wes is also a religious man and a fiddle player, both of these aspects of his life play a big role in his personality and his current and future life.
I picked up this book because of a 4 (of 5) star book review by Ron Charles in Washington Post.
Beautifully written novel of emotional force that I will not forget. There are several themes going on here that the author expertly interweaves without spelling it all out for the reader.
Wes returns to Black River with his wife's ashes and to a step son he hasn't spoken to in 20 years as well as a parole hearing for a monster who physically tortured him when he worked as a prison guard. The story slowly unfolds and keeps the reader wanting to know more about Wes and his past as well as his future. I loved the pace of the short novel. Interspersed are a few other interesting characters that add interest and surprises. Wes is also a religious man and a fiddle player, both of these aspects of his life play a big role in his personality and his current and future life.
I picked up this book because of a 4 (of 5) star book review by Ron Charles in Washington Post.
May 7, 2018
There's some very impressive writing here. How this book was not a smashing hit I don't know. A quiet gem.
December 15, 2014
What a beautiful book. From the opening passages when Wes suffers the loss of his beloved wife, we know we are in the presence of a master storyteller. S. M. Hulse writes with such clarity and purpose, bringing the Montana landscape into clear focus. Every detail is almost cinematically described but not in an intrusive way. The reader feels the chill in the air, smells the woodsmoke, and gains an understanding of the taciturn, conflicted man at the center. There is not a cliched moment here, and I look forward to what she has in store for the future.
June 16, 2024
This book is incredibly emotional, well written, deeply thought through. I absolutely loved the writing and character development. Brilliant first book by the author. She’s now on my radar for future reads.
January 30, 2015
What makes a book dark? Death, Suicide, Cancer, Torture, Family Dysfunction? If those elements qualify, then yes, Black River is a dark book.
The main character is a retired man of very few words. He recently lost his beloved wife to a long bout of cancer. He returns to their hometown to spread her ashes and in the process we learn the background of his life.
What was striking for me is this book was written by a woman, a young woman at that! I usually don't read the inside back flap, the author's brief bio....but after starting the book, I flipped back and saw a picture of a young woman. So surprised, I was expecting a wrinkled middle age male!
Our protagonist loves to make music....as does the author. This is where the beauty in the novel shines through. He is/was a fiddle player. The powerful emotions of anger and love that he could not or world not express in words, he channeled into his music.
This is a powerful little book and I look forward to hearing more from this author.
The main character is a retired man of very few words. He recently lost his beloved wife to a long bout of cancer. He returns to their hometown to spread her ashes and in the process we learn the background of his life.
What was striking for me is this book was written by a woman, a young woman at that! I usually don't read the inside back flap, the author's brief bio....but after starting the book, I flipped back and saw a picture of a young woman. So surprised, I was expecting a wrinkled middle age male!
Our protagonist loves to make music....as does the author. This is where the beauty in the novel shines through. He is/was a fiddle player. The powerful emotions of anger and love that he could not or world not express in words, he channeled into his music.
This is a powerful little book and I look forward to hearing more from this author.
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