{"product_id":"black-river-isbn-9780544570238","title":"Black River","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn Indie Next Title • An Indies Introduce Title • Long-listed for the 2015 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Impressive . . . [A] tough, honest novel by a surprisingly wise young writer.” — \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A complex and powerful story—put \u003ci\u003eBlack River\u003c\/i\u003e on the must-read list.” —\u003ci\u003e Seattle Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Wes Carver returns to his hometown—Black River, Montana—with two things: his wife’s ashes and a letter from the parole board. The convict who once held him hostage during a prison riot is up for release. For years, Wes earned his living as a corrections officer and found his joy playing the fiddle. But the riot shook Wes’s faith and robbed him of his music; now he must decide if his attacker should walk free. With “lovely rhythms, spare language, tenderness, and flashes of rage” (\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e), S. M. Hulse shows us the heart and darkness of an American town, and one man’s struggle to find forgiveness in the wake of evil.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Artful . . . Hulse evokes the Montana landscape in lyrical, vivid prose.” — \u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Hulse believes that grace happens in a look between two people, or a moment of holding back. A powerful elegy.” —\u003ci\u003e Guardian \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner of the 2015 Reading the West Book Award  A PEN\/Hemingway Finalist  Washington State Book Award Finalist  Long-listed for the 2015 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize  Semifinalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award  Short-listed for the Reading the West Book Awards\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eNamed an Honor Book for the 2015 Montana Book Award  Nominated for the ?International Dublin Literary Award 2017\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eFebruary 2015 Indie Next Title \u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eAn ABA's Winter\/Spring 2015 Indies Introduce title\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eOne of the Seattle \u003cem\u003eTimes's\u003c\/em\u003e \"Best Books of 2015\"\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eNamed One of the Choice Books by the RUSA Committee\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e(ALA)\u003c\/strong\u003e   \"This Montana-based story, about a prison guard who returns to his hometown after decades away, is an intricate work that layers faith with broken promises, broken bones, and broken hearts. This is a story of people shaped irrevocably by place and circumstance.\"—\u003cem\u003eSeattle Times\u003c\/em\u003e, \"Best Books of 2015\"  \"A promising debut...the lyrical landscapes and the emotional weather are in place.\" --John Williams, \u003cem\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/em\u003e   \"Impressive...[a] tough, honest novel by a surprisingly wise young writer.\" --Ron Charles, \u003cem\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/em\u003e   \"Hulse evokes the Montana landscape in lyrical, vivid prose...[she] is a gifted wordsmith with promising dramatic instincts.\" --\u003cem\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/em\u003e   \"The assured rhythms of the language convey grace, restraint, insights, power, and beauty. Black River transcends its setting and the circumstances of a few people in a small Montana town to say something true and enduring about violence and families, and grief and compassion.\" -- \u003cem\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/em\u003e   \"Transcending its genre-fiction setting, Black River is a powerful meditation on faith, family and redemption set in present-day Montana.\"--\u003cem\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/em\u003e   \"This first novel pulses with dramatic tension and emotional resonance... Hulse’s story is lyrical, elegiac and authentic. Watch for it on best-of-the-year lists.\"  -- BBC Culture     \"This top-of-the-line modern American Western debut explores the themes of violence, revenge, and forgiveness with a sure hand...From the bluegrass theme to the Western rural setting, Hulse handles his story like a pro.\"--\u003cem\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/em\u003e, starred and boxed review   \"Heads up—Hulse is a smart writer, able to reveal her character’s gut-level emotions and trickiest self-manipulations. Comparing the author to Annie Proulx, Wallace Stegner, or Kent Haruf is no exaggeration. Her debut is bound to turn readers’ hearts inside out and leave them yearning for some sweet, mournful fiddle music.\" --\u003cem\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/em\u003e, starred review   \"Hulse debuts with a stark, tender tale about one man's quest for faith and forgiveness...By making Wes' suffering so palpable, Hulse makes it even more moving when, in the novel's final pages, he achieves something he's been seeking for a very long time: grace. Profound issues addressed with a delicate touch and folded into a strong story populated by wrenchingly human characters: impressive work from a gifted young artist.\" --\u003cem\u003eKirkus\u003c\/em\u003e, starred review   \"Hulse clearly loves Montana, and her own fiddle playing and knowledge of horses shine through the novel. She maintains suspense and manages to avoid the clichés of redemption stories in this assured debut.\" --\u003cem\u003eBooklist\u003c\/em\u003e, starred review  \u003cem\u003e\"Black River \u003c\/em\u003etackles themes of Old Testament proportion—the inheritance of sin, deliverance and damnation, good and evil. Its characters wrestle with their pasts and each other; their collisions are filled with rage, miscommunication, and occasionally the wistful hope for a  second chance. With an empathic touch, this sophisticated debut illuminates how fine a line there can be between vengeance and redemption. This is a story you won’t forget.”  —Siobhan Fallon, author of \u003cem\u003eYou Know When the Men Are Gone\u003c\/em\u003e   \"The prose in S.M. Hulse's debut novel \u003cem\u003eBlack River\u003c\/em\u003e mirrors the Montana land in which it's set: spare, powerful, and dangerous. This is a novel about love born from violence, about families torn apart by tragedy, and about a community that must take a long, hard look at its past if it's ever going to see its future. Like Kent Haruf and Larry McMurtry, S.M. Hulse knows the landscape about which she writes, and she understands the hearts of those who live there.\"  —Wiley Cash, author of the NYT bestselling \u003cem\u003eA Land More Kind Than Home\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThis Dark Road to Mercy \u003c\/em\u003e   \"Hulse writes with great clarity and precision, her language a celebration of rigor and intensity, and with such awareness of human rage and love—and fear of love—that her novel \u003cem\u003eBlack River\u003c\/em\u003e feels like a river itself, teeming and unexpected and driven. She has an amazing sensibility for creating the understated, the emotionally-pressurized, the contained-and-explosive, the unsaid-and-impossible-to-say. One of the great joys of reading this novel is watching how she manages this—and how her perfect balance allows her deeper and deeper insights into the ways that people, especially men, negotiate their love for, and their fear of, each other and themselves.\"  —Kent Meyers, author of \u003cem\u003eThe Work of Wolves \u003c\/em\u003e   \"Like her forbears Kittredge, Proulx, Carlson, Hulse examines the mountains and rivers of the west, its implacable beauty, and makes the landscape her own. In Wesley Carver she has made a mountain of her own, fashioned and then refashioned by the forces of memory, bitterness, and finally, forgiveness. A wonderful debut by a welcome new voice.\"  —Ehud Havazelet, author of \u003cem\u003eBearing the Body\u003c\/em\u003e   \"A lovely austerity infuses this story of damage and redemption, and makes it glow. Hulse is a wise and compassionate writer who understands the tricky and heartbreaking borders between principle and rigidity, justice and revenge. Her debut novel is provoking and memorable.\"  —Deirdre McNamer, author of \u003cem\u003eRed Rover\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eMy Russian\u003c\/em\u003e “\u003cem\u003eBlack River \u003c\/em\u003eis one of the best debut novels I've read in a long time. S.M. Hulse is a smart and sensitive writer, utilizing strong, clean and evocative prose to tell us of Wes Carver, a man who is wrestling with the world and himself, haunted by an old horror, tattered family bonds, a wife who is dead but not gone.”  —Daniel Woodrell, author of \u003cem\u003eWinter’s Bone\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Maid’s Version\u003c\/em\u003e, and others   “\u003cem\u003eBlack River\u003c\/em\u003e is such a vivid, compelling debut novel. S.M. Hulse is an astute guide to an implacable western landscape of grief, violence and redemption.”  —Jess Walter, author of \u003cem\u003eBeautiful Ruins\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Financial Lives of the Poets\u003c\/em\u003e, and others\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mariner Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44890056753381,"sku":"NP9780544570238","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780544570238.jpg?v=1730232461","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/black-river-isbn-9780544570238","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}