A review by shimmer
The Voice of the River by Melanie Rae Thon

4.0

Not quite sure how I feel about this one: it pulled me in and kept me engaged, but didn't leave me with a strong impression one way or the other. The poetic voice was a pleasure, and there are some powerful sections (the chapter about a young girl lost and wandering her neighborhood overnight, for instance). But it seemed to tread the same ground as several other novels (Kent Meyers The River Warren, Jon McGregor's If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, and Brian Doyle's Mink River, for example) in the type of characters and the structure of interlaced lives around the event of a small town tragedy, and even the thematic notions about community and love and continuity it explores. It never stopped feeling familiar, perhaps because the "eco avant-garde" aspect emphasized in the publisher's description wasn't as much a part of the story as I'd hoped for. I guess I'm also not as convinced as the novel takes for granted that suffering is the only (or most) interesting aspect of a life, and found myself wishing for a bit more range in how these characters were shown, because as large and varied as the cast is they are defined almost exclusively by their pain.