Rivers - 9781451699425

In the tradition of Cormac McCarthy, Larry Brown, and James Lee Burke, Rivers is an enthralling, darkly beautiful novel set in Mississippi against the backdrop of a series of devastating storms that pummeled the American South in the years since Hurricane Katrina.

In the near future, a climate shift has caused massive damage to the Southeastern United States, eroding the coastline and forcing people from their homes. But one man has stayed behind. Cohen’s wife and unborn child were killed during a mandatory evacuation, and when he returned home to bury them, he never left, building and rebuilding his house as the rain, wind, and darkness worked against him.

Returning from a supply run one day, Cohen picks up two teenage hitchhikers—a boy and an injured Creole girl—and his solitary existence is irrevocably shattered. He is attacked and left for dead, his house ransacked, all his carefully accumulated food and supplies gone—but worse, the last precious mementos he had of his wife and child are now in the hands of strangers. Summoning his last reserves of strength, Cohen sets off to gain justice for all he has lost.

With enormous passion and reverence for the post-Katrina South, Rivers evokes the ravages of nature as never before. It is an enthralling, gorgeously written tale of survival and redemption that heralds a major new voice in literary fiction.