Name: Go As a River
Rating: 4.045454545454546 (11 reviews)
ISBN: 9781954118232

Shelley Read

A Novel

Go As a River

Victoria Justice

I've come to understand how the exceptional lurks beneath the ordinary, like the deep and mysterious world beneath the surface of the sea.

The stranger's eyes were as dark and shiny as a raven's wing. And kind - that is what I remember most about those eyes from the first glimpse until the final gaze - a gentleness that seemed to fountain from his center and spill out like an overflowing well.

Love is a private matter, to be nurtured, and even mourned, between two beings alone. It belongs to them and no one else, like a secret treasure, like a private poem.

Try as we might to convince ourselves otherwise, the moment of our becoming cannot be carefully plucked like the ripest and most satisfying peach from the bough. In the endless stumble toward ourselves, we harvest the crop we are given.

Sometimes a woman splits in two. Sometimes a woman is a public self who sits rigid on a bench with proper dignity and acceptance as someone she deeply loves walks away, while simultaneously her private self is shrieking and chasing and grasping and tackling and begging that love to stay.

I had tried, as Wil taught me, to go as a river, but it had taken me a long while to understand what that meant. Flowing forward against obstacle was not my whole story. For, like the river, I had also gathered along the way all the tiny pieces connecting me to everything else.

'Shelley Read's lyrical voice is a force of nature. Tragic, uplifting and completely unforgettable' BONNIE GARMUS, author of LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY 'A lush, beautiful, strong book. It took me on such a transformative life journey. I could not put it down' CLOVER STROUD ____________________ I've come to understand how the exceptional lurks beneath the ordinary like the deep and mysterious world beneath the sea On a cool autumn morning, Torie Nash heads into her village pulling a rickety wagon filled with late-season peaches. As she nears an intersection, a mysterious drifter with grimy thumbs and smudged cheeks and eyes as dark as a raven's wing stops to ask her the way. She could turn left or cross over. But she does not. Her heart skips a beat as he whispers, 'Go as a river.' So begins a mezmerising story that unfolds over a tumultuous lifetime as Torie begins to absorb and follow his words. Soon, she will gather all the pieces of her small and extraordinary life, spin through the eddies of desire, heartbreak and betrayal, and arrive at a single rocky decision that will change her life for ever. Completely spellbinding, vivid, and luminous' JANE GREEN 'Go As a River delivers so very much- the tenderness and curiosity of young love, the eternal pangs of loss, the brutality of racism, the sustaining power of nature and the miracle of a mother's love. Suffused with wisdom and compassion, this shattering testimony to life must be savored, treasured, shared' MEG WAITE CLAYTON, author of The Postmistress of Paris

"I had tried, as Wil taught me, to go as a river, but it had taken me a long while to understand what that meant. Flowing forward against obstacle was not my whole story. For, like the river, I had also gathered along the way all the tiny pieces connecting me to everything else."

After losing her mother at the age of 12, Victoria Nash becomes the homemaker of her household, performing all the domestic duties for her fully male household. But when she happens upon a strange boy walking the streets of her small hometown asking for directions, she is instantly drawn to him, forcing the flow of her life and everything she knows along a new path of passion, betrayal, heartache and deep loss and loneliness, resilience and love.

First of all, the writing in this book is as delectable as the Nash families peaches! It is so exquisitely descriptive, drawing on the power and resilience of nature and fully immersing you within the story. There were parts of the prose that were so atmospheric and almost lyrical, leaving me re-reading and absorbing every word.

The story is being told as a river, sometimes slow, flowing, and drawing from its surrounds, and other times fast and overpowering in its intensity. You really felt captive to Victoria's story as you were reading and left me feeling so heartbroken for this girl forced to age without the guidance of her mother.

There are some heavy themes dealt with in these 300 pages; discrimination, love, loss, longing,  motherhood, sacrifice, resilience, friendship, and how one defines family and a sense of home. The characters were so fleshed out, supporting and carrying each of these themes along to a spine chilling, emotional conclusion.

I found myself fully invested in each page of Victoria's mesmerising and heartwrenching journey!

"I had tried, as Wil taught me, to go as a river, but it had taken me a long while to understand what that meant. Flowing forward against obstacle was not my whole story. For, like the river, I had also gathered along the way all the tiny pieces connecting me to everything else."

After losing her mother at the age of 12, Victoria Nash becomes the homemaker of her household, performing all the domestic duties for her fully male household. But when she happens upon a strange boy walking the streets of her small hometown asking for directions, she is instantly drawn to him, forcing the flow of her life and everything she knows along a new path of passion, betrayal, heartache and deep loss and loneliness, resilience and love.

First of all, the writing in this book is as delectable as the Nash families peaches! It is so exquisitely descriptive, drawing on the power and resilience of nature and fully immersing you within the story. There were parts of the prose that were so atmospheric and almost lyrical, leaving me re-reading and absorbing every word.

The story is being told as a river, sometimes slow, flowing, and drawing from its surrounds, and other times fast and overpowering in its intensity. You really felt captive to Victoria's story as you were reading and left me feeling so heartbroken for this girl forced to age without the guidance of her mother.

There are some heavy themes dealt with in these 300 pages; discrimination, love, loss, longing,  motherhood, sacrifice, resilience, friendship, and how one defines family and a sense of home. The characters were so fleshed out, supporting and carrying each of these themes along to a spine chilling, emotional conclusion.

I found myself fully invested in each page of Victoria's mesmerising and heartwrenching journey!

Mia McCoy

In the spirit of Where the Crawdads Sing, a riveting and deeply moving debut--a love story that is both a stunning exploration of the natural world and an unforgettable coming-of-age novel. Victoria Nash is just a teenager in the 1940s, but she runs the household on her family's peach farm in the ranch town of Iola, Colorado--the sole surviving female in a family of troubled men. Wilson Moon is a young drifter with a mysterious past, displaced from his tribal land in the Four Corners region, who wants to believe one place is just like another. When Victoria encounters Wil on a street corner, their unexpected connection ignites as much passion as danger and as many revelations as secrets. Victoria flees into the beautiful but harsh wilderness of the nearby mountains when tragedy strikes. Living in a small hut, she struggles to survive in the unforgiving conditions with no clear notion of what her future will be. What happens afterward is her quest to regain all that she has lost, even as the Gunnison River rises to submerge her homeland and the only life she has ever known. Go as a River is a story of love and loss but also of finding home, family, resilience--and love--where least expected.

Go As a River A Novel

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