The Remains of River Names

The novel is told in twelve linked stories, each of which is a chapter told in turn by the members of a counter-culture family in the process of destroying itself. The novel takes place over twenty years, from the '70's to the 90's, from the beginnings of familial disintegration to its individual members coming to terms.

About the Author :
Matt Briggs grew up in the Snoqualmie Valley, raised by working-class, counter-culture parents who cultivated and sold cannabis. Briggs has written two books set in rural Washington chronicling this life, The Remains of River Names and Shoot the Buffalo. Critic Ann Powers wrote of Briggs first book in the New York Times Book Review, "Briggs has captured the America that neither progressives nor family-value advocates want to think about, where bohemianism has degenerated into dangerous dropping out." Briggs has published a number of collection of stories, including The Moss Gatherers and The End is the Beginning. Of his stories, Jim Feast wrote in the American Book Review, "All of Briggs's zigzagging stories are told with great attention to the details of lowbrow culture and the contours of the American Northwest." Briggs is the author of eight works of fiction including The Remains of River Names and Virility Rituals of North American Teenage Boys. His first novel, Shoot the Buffalo, was a finalist for the 2006 Washington State Book Award and won the 2006 American Book Award. The Italian edition of The Remains of River Names was released in 2016 by Ad Est Dell' Equator (Naples), and a new collection of prose will be released by Dr. Cicero Books in 2017. His stories have appeared in The Chicago Review, Word Riot, BULL, Opium Magazine, ZYZYYVA, and elsewhere. His fiction has won a number of prizes including The CityArtist Award from the City of Seattle, The Nelson Bentley Prize in Fiction from The Seattle Review and The Stranger Genius Award. He has an MA from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins, and lives near Seattle.

Review :
"With this first collection that functions as a novel, Matt Briggs adds to the gravelly layers of "Northwest writing," while the controversy over what the moniker means must continue. The Remains of River Names is a beautiful, blunt, and haunting book, one that takes regionalism and splinters it; Briggs is a voice that will take our area into the future, and I for one look forward to it." -- The Stranger, August 26, 1999 "The Remains of River Names is an emotionally accurate and vividly compelling journey into actuality." -- William Kittredge "Briggs has captured the America that neither progressives nor family-values advocates want to think about, where bohemianism has degenerated into dangerous dropping out." -- Ann Powers, The New York Times Book Review "Such art registers the hard realities and tenacious romaniticism of a country wet with fog and light." -- New York Times Book Review