Wicked River Lib/E: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild

Acclaimed journalist and author Lee Sandlin delivers a riveting glimpse of a dangerous and colorful place in America's historical landscape-the Mississippi River of the 19th century. Long before it was dredged into a shipping channel or romanticized into myth, the untamed Mississippi-the lifeblood of communities that rose and fell along its banks-spawned a motley array of pirates and dignitaries, visionaries and thieves.

About the Author :
Lee Sandlin is a regular contributor to the Chicago Reader. His essay "Losing the War" was included in the anthology The New Kings of Nonfiction. He lives in Chicago. Jeff McCarthy is an American voice actor who has also worked in film, television, and on stage. He has had over forty guest-starring and many recurring roles on television and had the main role of Albert Schweitzer in the PBS film, Albert Schweitzer: Called to Africa. His roles in six major motion pictures include Robo Cop and Consent. He has had numerous leading roles in Broadway musicals. He has narrated both fiction and nonfiction titles and was the voice of the Chuck Jones' creation, Michigan J. Frog, for the WB television network.

Review :

"A gripping book that plunges you into a rich dark stretch of visceral history. I read it in two sittings and got up shaken."

"Entertaining...Chicago essayist and journalist Lee Sandlin tells tales about the Mississippi in the days when the river and the people who floated on it or lived along it were wild and untamed in the extreme...Sandlin has done an impressive amount of research. For all that, his prose manages to avoid the snags and shoals of academic English... A lot of fun to read."

"Gripping stuff...Appreciators of what Greil Marcus calls the Old, Weird America will savor Wicked River. Its many ghastly scenes, vividly rendered by Mr. Sandlin, started showing up in my dreams...I was surprised, upon finishing Wicked River, to read that this confident and swift-moving book is the author's first. It makes one eager for the next."

"In this lush, exuberant, action-packed and history-drenched book, Sandlin has brought the river back home again...A vivid torrent of facts and passions, in an inspired agitation of water and words...Wicked River is the best kind of history book. It is organized around people and their fates, not wars and dates and treaty signings. It artfully separates reality from fables, but it recognizes that fables have a story to tell, too, that our tall tales and our songs and our exaggerations and our mythologies can be as revelatory as topographical maps and temperature charts."

"Marvelously captured...A superb book debut...Sandlin writes of a recurring sense of looming catastrophe that gripped many residents...Fascinating."