In the 1950s, a series of dams was proposed along the Brazos River in north-central Texas. For John Graves, this project meant that if the stream's regimen was thus changed, the beautiful and sometimes brutal surrounding countryside would also change, as would the lives of the people whose rugged ancestors had eked out an existence there. Graves therefore decided to visit that stretch of the river, which he had known intimately as a youth.
Goodbye to a River is his account of that farewell canoe voyage. As he braves rapids and fatigue and the fickle autumn weather, he muses upon old blood feuds of the region and violent skirmishes with native tribes, and retells wild stories of courage and cowardice and deceit that shaped both the river's people and the land during frontier times and later. Nearly half a century after its initial publication, Goodbye to a River is a true American classic, a vivid narrative about an exciting journey and a powerful tribute to a vanishing way of life and its ever-changing natural environment.
"Graves' originality and flair turn this local scene and regional lore into an honest and powerfully evocative picture of frontier life anywhere."--Chicago Sunday Tribune
About the Author :
Henry Strozier is an actor with a forty-year career in numerous movies and television series. Also a voice-over artist, he has worked extensively in video games and audiobook narration, earning several AudioFile Earphones Awards.
Review :
"As you read, you have the feeling that the whole colorful, brutal tapestry of the Lone Star State is being unrolled for you out of the biography of this one stream."
-- "Atlantic Monthly "
"Graves' originality and flair turn this local scene and regional lore into an honest and powerfully evocative picture of frontier life anywhere."
-- "Chicago Sunday Tribune"
"Henry Strozier's dry, definitive tones cause no misgivings as to historical or even geological veracity. This journey along the condemned river in chilly November is both a poignant farewell and an anecdotal history lesson of Indian massacres and headstrong drunks and fish that got away. As a monologue of thoughts and impressions, this book is lucky to have such a sympathetic reader, who makes the listener pleased to simply go with the flow."
-- "AudioFile"
"John Graves' writing is invaluable...The reader who misses Graves will have missed much."
-- "Larry McMurtry, New York Times bestselling author of Lonesome Dove"
"One of the most pleasing books I've ever read. I love the way it weaves together remote history, not so remote history, present events, and landscape."
-- "Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, New York Times bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Dogs"
