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The River Wife: A Novel | 
| Author: Jonis Agee
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 18675
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 1400065968
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781400065967
ASIN: 1400065968
Publication Date: July 17, 2007
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Condition: Unmarked and in great shape.
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Product Description
From acclaimed novelist Jonis Agee, whom The New York Times Book Review called “a gifted poet of that dark lushness in the heart of the American landscape,” The River Wife is a sweeping, panoramic story that ranges from the New Madrid earthquake of 1811 through the Civil War to the bootlegging days of the 1930s.
When the earthquake brings Annie Lark’s Missouri house down on top of her, she finds herself pinned under the massive roof beam, facing certain death. Rescued by French fur trapper Jacques Ducharme, Annie learns to love the strong, brooding man and resolves to live out her days as his “River Wife.”
More than a century later, in 1930, Hedie Rails comes to Jacques’ Landing to marry Clement Ducharme, a direct descendant of the fur trapper and river pirate, and the young couple begin their life together in the very house Jacques built for Annie so long ago. When, night after late night, mysterious phone calls take Clement from their home, a pregnant Hedie finds comfort in Annie’s leather-bound journals. But as she reads of the sinister dealings and horrendous misunderstandings that spelled out tragedy for the rescued bride, Hedie fears that her own life is paralleling Annie’s, and that history is repeating itself with Jacques’ kin.
Among the family’s papers, Hedie encounters three other strong-willed women who helped shape Jacques Ducharme’s life–Omah, the freed slave who took her place beside him as a river raider; his second wife, Laura, who loved money more than the man she married; and Laura and Jacques’ daughter, Maddie, a fiery beauty with a nearly uncontrollable appetite for love. Their stories, together with Annie’s, weave a haunting tale of this mysterious, seductive, and ultimately dangerous man, a man whose hand stretched over generations of women at a bend in the river where fate and desire collide.
The River Wife richly evokes the nineteenth-century South at a time when lives changed with the turn of a card or the flash of a knife. Jonis Agee vividly portrays a lineage of love and heartbreak, passion and deceit, as each river wife comes to discover that blind devotion cannot keep the truth at bay, nor the past from haunting the present.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Relentless and compelling as the Mississippi River itself January 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The past continually haunts the present in Jonis Agee's historical novel THE RIVER WIFE, the story of four generations of women whose lives are intertwined with charismatic, larger-than-life Jacques Ducharme.
The first woman to be introduced (but last chronologically) is Hedie Ducharme, a teenaged, pregnant bride who, in 1930, comes with her new husband Clement to live at his family's house in Missouri's far southeastern bootheel region. The house is known as Jacques' Landing. Estranged from her family, often left alone by her husband for days at a time, Hedie turns to the journals she finds in the house's library. In their pages, she discovers clues not only to Jacques, the house's namesake, but also to the several women whose lives were intertwined with his.
The first woman --- who stands at the spiritual and emotional heart of the novel --- is Annie Lark, who has been trapped in the wreckage of the devastating 1812 New Madrid Earthquake. Abandoned by her family, nearly dead of starvation and thirst, Annie embraces her savior and gladly joins him in a new kind of life on the fringes of society. When Jacques decides to settle down and build a house and an inn on land near the Mississippi, she gladly joins in his dreams of prosperity and wealth.
Crippled for life by her injuries, soon beset by a devastating personal tragedy and with a series of betrayals, Annie gradually grows disillusioned with Jacques and with their marriage. After her death, her ghostly presence seems to haunt the women who follow her --- including a former slave, as well as Jacques' conniving second wife and their daughter Maddie.
As Hedie reads these journals, Annie's presence also haunts her life 100 years later. Hedie's life, from her pregnancy to her relationship with Clement, seems to have precedents in the lives of those women who came to Jacques' Landing before her. Surrounded by mystery and violence, these women find solace and safety in small magic, charms and talismans that often reappear over and over again. Hedie reflects on these protective objects: "We have so little that isn't too fragile to bear our living."
The novel's Ozark setting, particularly the threat of earthquakes and the simultaneously benevolent and menacing presence of the Mississippi River, informs much of the action. Living on the fringes of society, Jacques and his women are freed to live an almost lawless existence, isolated from both progress and propriety. Southern Gothic elements are also at work in the novel, from supernatural sightings to grotesque violence to an almost suffocating atmosphere. Agee, for the most part, ties together the women's stories effectively, only occasionally bogging down in explanations of the tangled family tree. As a whole, though, the story of Jacques' women sweeps along as relentlessly and compellingly as the Mississippi River itself.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
 Thoroughly enjoyed this read. December 21, 2007
I found this to be a wonderfully deep and enjoyable book. The characters were fascinating and well developed. The plots and themes twisted around seamlessly and I never felt lost between generations. I found the descriptions of the places and events to be accurate and of a place and time (early 19th century, Bootheel Missouri)that we don't often read about. I would recommend it highly to friends and to my book club. I would read it again and that doesn't happen very often.
 The River Wife September 13, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
On February 7, 1812 the New Madrid earthquake - the largest quake ever recorded in the United States - hit Annie Lark's Missouri house, trapping her beneath a roof beam. Unable to move the massive timber and terrified by the aftershocks, her family decides to leave the sixteen year old girl to her fate, but death is slow coming and she lingers until a French fur trapper named, Jacques Ducharme, rescues her days later. What follows is the story of Annie's life as Jacques' "river wife," which Jacques' descendant Hedie Ducharme discovers among the family papers along with the histories of three other Ducharme women. Together these stories take the reader from 1812 Missouri, through the Civil War and up to the bootlegging days of the 1930's. I was riveted by Annie's story. Her legs never fully recover from their earthquake trauma and her fearless determination to adapt to both this setback and the rough, sometimes violent, life she leads with Jacques is captivating. Agee's skill as a storyteller is evident throughout the novel, yet, try as I might, once the novel shifted away from Annie I wasn't able to maintain my initial interest. I enjoyed the tales of Omah, Laura and Maddie, but Hedie's story is lukewarm at best. While the other women are strong willed and clever in their own ways, Hedie is timid and willfully ignorant of her husband's true nature. There were more than a few moments when I couldn't help but think, "Come on Hedie, you haven't figured it all out yet? Gimme a break." Hedie's story is interspersed between chapters, so naturally her character influences the entire novel - especially the ending, which uses her life to conclude the Ducharme tale.
 The River Wife Won't Float September 7, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
As a longtime fan of Jonis Agee, I couldn't wait to begin her latest novel. I was sorely disappointed within the first 50 pages. "River Wife" reads like a formulaic historical romance. For the first time, the author fails to develop believable characters with which the reader can identify. After all, who can relate to people with such stilted names as Annie Lark, Jacques and Clement Ducharme, and Hedie Rails? Unfortunately, the author spends her time developing a by-the-numbers plotline instead of her characters. The setting is interesting and unique, but the story is both tiresome and thoroughly depressing. Descendents finding and reading the journals and diaries of their ancestors went out with "The Bridges of Madison County." Within the first hundred pages, Agee describes an incident so reprehensible and sadistic that I lost my stomach for "River Wife." How in the world could the 20th century Hedie Rails find comfort in reading Annie's gloomy journals?
Southern Gothic meets Rich Man, Poor Man September 4, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Thoughts: 1. too long in the middle; 2. too short ending; 3. would like a sequel to bring it up to date.; 4. Continuity problems-found the jumping from character to character, age to age difficult. I keep thumbing back to see if maybe I had missed something. Then several chapters/decades later it would be explained how someone died.
However, I did enjoy the book. Days later I was still thinking it over.
Finally I came to the conclusion it is not a saga of a family or of the river. Instead it is the history of one piece of property. How different individuals are changed by their desire to keep the propery. Each character's loss is tied to this desire.
There is a turning point in each of their lives when they could walk away. They each make the choice to stay and suffer the consequences.
Dealie is changed from a world wise, wealthy, fashionable woman to a hag. Hedie is changed from a naive girl to a murderer. Even Jacque a happy go lucky trapper becomes a mysoginistic, demented, scrooge.
River Wife is worth reading, very thought provoking.
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