What to Read Next: Finding Life in Unexpected Places

Issue #316, featuring "The Shipping News" and "Riverman"

Happy Friday, readers!

In just a few hours, I’m jetting off to Austin, Texas for a long weekend away with my wife (thanks for watching the kids, Mom!), but of course I had to share a couple books with you before leaving. I brought an odd combo of books for the vacay: Toni Morrison’s Beloved as well as Babylon’s Ashes, which is book six in James Corey’s Expanse series. I always enjoy a mix of heavy and light reading. You’ll hear about both in due time.

Today, both of the featured books higlight what it means to find life on the margins — in forgotten places, with forgotten people — and how that life can be unexpectedly fulfilling, even in the midst of hardship.

Heads up: I won’t be sending anything on Tuesday, so you’ll hear from me again next Friday.

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Riverman: An American Odyssey by Ben McGrath

Published: 2022 | Pages: 255

Journalist Ben McGrath never expected to find himself in the middle of a mystery. All he wanted to do was tell the story of Dick Conant, an itinerant canoer who’s paddled thousands of miles up and down America’s waterways for the last few decades.

But then, in the midst of his reporting, Conant disappeard near North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

Backtracking from that moment, McGrath finds the people Conant interacted with amidst a life on the water — siblings, girlfriends, fellow vagabonds, and numerous other everyday folks.

Though the central mystery plays a part in the narrative, it’s much more so focused on what led Conant to life on the river and the surprising ways he found contentment in that existence. Woven throughout are interesting explorations of rivermen in America’s history and the role of these rushing waterways in society. I was particulaly delighted by the numerous literary references — rivers show up in important ways in a lot of our pop culture touchstones.

I had never heard of this book before unwrapping it on Christmas morning — my wife always finds unique and unheralded books for me. From page one, I was enthralled by both the writing and the story. For anyone with an interest in the outdoors — or even just a well-told story of a uniquely interesting human — Riverman is well worth your time.

And I’ll let you read ‘til the end to find out if McGrath gets to the bottom of Conant’s disappearance.

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The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

Published: 1993 | Pages: 337

This Putlizer-winning novel from 1993 was completely different than what I expected, and although it was a little bit of a struggle early on, I came to really enjoy and appreciate it.

First, I was surprised by the writing style. Rather than giving us fluid, lyrical sentences (which I expected, for no reason at all), Proulx provides more of a Hemingway-esque experience with clipped sentences that feel a bit wobbly and take some time to get used to.

Here’s an example of what I mean, from a random page:

“A faint path angled toward the sea, and he thought it might come out onto the shore north of the new dock. Started down. After a hundred feet the trail went steep and wet, and he slid through wild angelica stalks and billows of dogberry. Did not notice knots tied in the tips of the alder branches.

Entered a band of spruce, branches snarled with moss, whiskey jacks fluttering. The path became a streambed full of juicy rocks. A waterfall with the flattened ocean at its foot. He stumbled, grasping at Alexanders, the leaves perfuming his hands.”

Second, I was surprised by our head-scratching but ultimately very lovable main character, Quoyle. (Notably, that name is a rough homonym for “coil” — this book is full of nautical and knot-ical language.) He starts off as a bumbling everyman, almost too inept to be likable. Quoyle is a newly single father of two delightful daughters and just can’t seem to get his shit together. So he retreats to his ancestral home in small-town Newfoundland.

Thankfully, Quoyle gains a sense of agency as the story progress; he comes to find himself and what it means to live a fulfilling life in a hardscrabble place. As with most books that I really connect with, the answer is found in love, community, and rootedness.

When you combine the unique style with characters who grow (both on the page and in ours hearts) as well as an unforgetably oceanic setting, you get a real winner of a book. It’s no wonder that The Shipping News won both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award — a rarified combination of accolades that only six books can claim.

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Thanks so much for reading. I deeply appreciate the time and inbox space.

-Jeremy