What do you think?
Rate this book
The River is Home and Angel City
The River is Home, Smith's first novel, revolves around a Mississippi family's struggle to cope with changes in their rural environment. Angel City is the powerful and moving expose of migrant workers in Florida in the 1970s, which was made into a critically acclaimed film.
- GenresFiction
400 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1978
3 people are currently reading
103 people want to read
About the author
Patrick D. Smith
39 books210 followersPatrick Smith is a 1999 inductee into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, the highest and most prestigious cultural honor that can be bestowed upon an individual by the State of Florida.
In May 2002 Smith was the recipient of the Florida Historical Society’s Fay Schweim Award as the “Greatest Living Floridian.” The one-time-only award was established to honor the one individual who has contributed the most to Florida in recent history. Smith was cited for the impact his novels have made on Floridians, both natives and newcomers to the state, and for the worldwide acclaim he has received.
Smith has been nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize, in 1973 for Forever Island, which was a 1974 selection of the Reader’s Digest Condensed Book Club and has been published in 46 countries; in 1978 for Angel City, which was produced as a “Movie of the Week” for the CBS television network and has aired worldwide; and in 1984 for A Land Remembered, which was an Editors’ Choice selection of the New York Times Book Review. In the 2001 The Best of Florida statewide poll taken by Florida Monthly magazine, A Land Remembered was ranked #1 Best Florida Book. The novel also ranked #1 in all the polls since then. Smith’s lifetime work was nominated for the 1985 Nobel Prize for Literature, and since then he has received five additional nominations.
In 2008 he was honored with a Literary Heritage Award at the 1st Annual Heritage Book Festival in St Augustine. FLorida's Secretary of State Kurt Browning presented the award.
In 1995 Patrick Smith was elected by The Southern Academy of Letters, Arts and Science for its highest literary award, The Order of the South. Previous recipients include Eudora Welty, James Dickey, and Reynolds Price. In 1996 he was named a Florida Ambassador of the Arts, an honor given each year by the state of Florida to someone who has made significant contributions to Florida's cultural growth. In 1999 Smith was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, which is the highest and most prestigious cultural honor the state bestows upon an individual artist. Prior inductees include writers Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ernest Hemingway.
In October 1990 he received the University of Mississippi’s Distinguished Alumni Award and was inducted into the University’s Alumni Hall of Fame. In 1997, the Florida Historical Society created a new annual award, the Patrick D. Smith Florida Literature Award, in his honor.
Thousands of people of all ages have enjoyed his books and his talks. With his new DVD, A Sense of Place, you can spend an intimate hour with this soft-spoken author and gain an insight into the creative processes that resulted in his beloved books.
Patrick lives in Merritt Island, Florida with his wife Iris and his beloved cats.
In May 2002 Smith was the recipient of the Florida Historical Society’s Fay Schweim Award as the “Greatest Living Floridian.” The one-time-only award was established to honor the one individual who has contributed the most to Florida in recent history. Smith was cited for the impact his novels have made on Floridians, both natives and newcomers to the state, and for the worldwide acclaim he has received.
Smith has been nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize, in 1973 for Forever Island, which was a 1974 selection of the Reader’s Digest Condensed Book Club and has been published in 46 countries; in 1978 for Angel City, which was produced as a “Movie of the Week” for the CBS television network and has aired worldwide; and in 1984 for A Land Remembered, which was an Editors’ Choice selection of the New York Times Book Review. In the 2001 The Best of Florida statewide poll taken by Florida Monthly magazine, A Land Remembered was ranked #1 Best Florida Book. The novel also ranked #1 in all the polls since then. Smith’s lifetime work was nominated for the 1985 Nobel Prize for Literature, and since then he has received five additional nominations.
In 2008 he was honored with a Literary Heritage Award at the 1st Annual Heritage Book Festival in St Augustine. FLorida's Secretary of State Kurt Browning presented the award.
In 1995 Patrick Smith was elected by The Southern Academy of Letters, Arts and Science for its highest literary award, The Order of the South. Previous recipients include Eudora Welty, James Dickey, and Reynolds Price. In 1996 he was named a Florida Ambassador of the Arts, an honor given each year by the state of Florida to someone who has made significant contributions to Florida's cultural growth. In 1999 Smith was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, which is the highest and most prestigious cultural honor the state bestows upon an individual artist. Prior inductees include writers Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ernest Hemingway.
In October 1990 he received the University of Mississippi’s Distinguished Alumni Award and was inducted into the University’s Alumni Hall of Fame. In 1997, the Florida Historical Society created a new annual award, the Patrick D. Smith Florida Literature Award, in his honor.
Thousands of people of all ages have enjoyed his books and his talks. With his new DVD, A Sense of Place, you can spend an intimate hour with this soft-spoken author and gain an insight into the creative processes that resulted in his beloved books.
Patrick lives in Merritt Island, Florida with his wife Iris and his beloved cats.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 25, 2009
Didn't really like The River is Home, but LOVED Angel City. Patrick Smith did a lot of research on migrant labor camps and this story was the result. It is frightening how the workers are treated - in many ways it was just as bad as slavery. Very scary and sad but a worthwhile read.
March 29, 2024
Pass!
This book did not do it for me. I LOVE a land remembered, and this was nothing like it. I found myself unattached to any of its characters all the way up until the end. How many times can I hear the phrase “let’s check the fish traps”. Could rewrite this book in about 10 pages. The rest is just repeating over and over again. I was disappointed with this one.
This book did not do it for me. I LOVE a land remembered, and this was nothing like it. I found myself unattached to any of its characters all the way up until the end. How many times can I hear the phrase “let’s check the fish traps”. Could rewrite this book in about 10 pages. The rest is just repeating over and over again. I was disappointed with this one.
January 15, 2025
Thoroughly enjoyed both stories, I am a deep lover of Patrick Smith. Easy short reads, definitely worth your time-ESPECIALLY if you love reading stories about the olden days, swamp life, and the ups and downs of family life.
May 28, 2010
These books are written by an author who has a steadfast following amongst Florida history buffs. Seeing that I like local histories, the two books in one made for some interesting reading. The stories had a lot of potential and revealed a lot of interesting and relatively unknown Florida history (you mean there were people living there before Walt Disney dreamed up the Epcot Center?). But I think the thing that limited Smith from become really big (in the spirit of James Michener) was his writing style. It was not as memorable in my opinion.
October 17, 2011
Really enjoyed THe River is Home another fascinating story of a family struggling to stay afloat but content in doing it... Angel City was such a very sad story, family getting trapped into a situation they could not control or get out of, felt very bummed when I finished it, not a happy ending.
August 5, 2009
This book was well written. I found Angel City to be disturbing because the reality of situation is haunting. It changed the way I look at the world around me.
May 17, 2010
I really liked this book a lot. Not as much as a Land Remembered but it was still good. It was pretty tragic though.
December 2, 2013
Liked the writing; interesting that the the stories were written so many years apart.
April 27, 2014
love this author.
April 22, 2012
The River is Home was great. Angel City was very depressing.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews