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Fiction. Literature. When Wes Carver returns to Black River, he carries two things in the cab of his truck: his wife's ashes and a letter from the prison parole board. The convict who held him hostage during a riot twenty years ago is being considered for release. Wes has been away from Black River ever since the riot. He grew up in this small Montana town, and, like his father before, he made his living as a corrections officer. A talented, natural fiddler, he found solace and joy in his music. But during that riot, Bobby Williams changed everything for Wes-undermining his faith and taking away his ability to play. How can a man who once embodied evil ever come to good? How can he pay for such crimes with anything but his life? As Wes considers his own choices and grieves for all he's lost, he must decide what he believes and whether he can let Williams walk away.… (more)
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Wes and Claire once lived in Black River and Wes worked as a correctional officer, but 20 years ago a prison riot changed their lives. Held and tortured for 39 hours by a vicious inmate, Wes’s rage, fear and grief are still bottled up inside him. But the prison riot isn’t the only reason why Wes is scarred, he grew up in the shadow of a father who committed suicide and there was an incident with his stepson that caused great damage to the family and saw Claire and Wes move to Spokane. As Wes arrives back on the ranch that was once his home, he learns that the person responsible for his scars, burns and smashed fingers is coming up for parole.
With his silent stoicism and rigid morality Wes Carver is a hard man yet we do see another side, a much gentler man who lost the ability to play his violin and express his inner soul through his music when his fingers were smashed. Black River is both harsh yet delicate in it’s portrayal of one man’s quest for grace and the author hit all the right notes. There is a great deal more to this story than I have described here, but rest assured that Black River is a wonderful story of both rage and redemption.
When Wes Carver returns to Black River, he carries two things in the cab of his truck: his wife’s ashes and a letter from the prison parole board. The convict who held him hostage during a riot, twenty years ago, is being considered for release.
Wes has been away from Black River ever since the riot. He grew up in this small Montana town, encircled by mountains, and, like his father before him and most of the men there, he made his living as a Corrections Officer. A talented, natural fiddler, he found solace and joy in his music. But during that riot Bobby Williams changed everything for Wes — undermining his faith and taking away his ability to play.
Tutu says:
If ever a book were written to bring me out of a reading funk, this one is it. S. M. Hulse, in her debut novel, has given us an anguished and compelling tale of love and regret, condemnation and forgiveness, life and death, acceptance and rejection. She sets the story in the starkness of Montana mountains, leading several reviewers to declare the book to be a "western". The theme however, is much more universal. This story of human tragedy could take place in any small town in any part of the country.
Through an alternating series of flashbacks and current narrations, we follow the life of Wesley Carver, his wife Claire, his step-son Dennis, and assorted friends, co-workers, and relatives. The story of the prison riot and its impact on his life is the center piece. The theme of faith, forgiveness, goodness and evil provides the underpinnings. Watching Wes as he works through his grief over Claire's death, his feelings about the impending parole hearing for the prisoner who held him hostage, his relationship with his estranged step-son, and how he deals with the loss of the musical ability he took such joy in gives the reader a poignant tale of heart-breaking beauty.
The writing is clean, poetic, full of imagery and emotion. The story is short (only 232 pages,) and well-paced, without an extra word, but with the ability to paint scenes that bring us to tears. Even the ending is exceptional.
This is the best book I've read this year. I can't wait to see more by this author.
I haven’t done the book the justice I wanted to, or that it deserves. Some books just strike the right note at the right time for a reader, and this was one such for me. I am so glad I read it and hope that more readers will give it a try. I look forward to more work by S.M. Hulse.
For generations, the best paying jobs in Black River have been inside the walls of the local prison. Many of the prison’s correction officers, in fact, have fathers who themselves once held the same jobs they are working today. Wes Carver is no exception, but for Wes it all went terribly wrong during a prison riot during which he was taken hostage by a psychopath – and tortured for 39 hours. Wes, even though he worked at the prison another two years, emerged from that experience a broken man, both physically and mentally. Then, after a near violent confrontation at the dinner table between Wes and his stepson, he and Claire leave Black River to start a new life for themselves in Spokane, Washington.
Now Wes has returned to Black River for two very different reasons: to bring Claire’s ashes back to her son and to testify at the parole hearing of the man who almost tortured him to death twenty years earlier. Finally forced to confront all his old demons (including his relationship with the step-son he has barely spoken to for the past eighteen years), Wes is not having an easy time of it. Now his friends are starting to wonder which of the two tasks will destroy him first.
Black River, largely told through flashbacks, is filled with interesting characters and plot twists, and its setting is so vividly rendered by Hulse that the reader gets a clear feeling of what life in such a geographically isolated and self-contained location must be like. This is a place with few secrets, a place where newcomers are not particularly welcome, a place where families have known each other for generations. And they like it that way.
No, this is not a perfect novel. But it is one that I highly recommend, and one that has turned me into an S.M. Hulse fan. I can’t wait to see what she does next.
Driving to his hometown deep in the canyon made by mountains, retired Corrections Officer, Wes Carver feels lost. Sixty years old and widowed five days
Black River puts faces on the big questions of faith and justice and reparation. What does it say about faith that a criminal can “find” it and a church-going man “lose” it? Is justice served if Billy goes free while Wes remains disabled by the physical and emotional wounds he inflicted? In her first novel S. M. Hulse draws on a harsh landscape of intimidating mountains and descending valley roads to portray the devastation of loss, softening it with the soul-saving music of Wes Carver’s fiddle. Hulse deftly inhabits the male world of stoicism, violence and punishment, wrangling out of it a searing drama certain to impress a large audience.
When Wes Carver returns to Black River, he carries two things in the cab of his truck: his wife’s ashes and a letter from the prison parole board. The convict who held him hostage during a riot, twenty years ago, is being considered for release.
Wes has been away from Black River ever since the riot. He grew up in this small Montana town, encircled by mountains, and, like his father before him and most of the men there, he made his living as a Corrections Officer. A talented, natural fiddler, he found solace and joy in his music. But during that riot Bobby Williams changed everything for Wes — undermining his faith and taking away his ability to play.
Tutu says:
If ever a book were written to bring me out of a reading funk, this one is it. S. M. Hulse, in her debut novel, has given us an anguished and compelling tale of love and regret, condemnation and forgiveness, life and death, acceptance and rejection. She sets the story in the starkness of Montana mountains, leading several reviewers to declare the book to be a "western". The theme however, is much more universal. This story of human tragedy could take place in any small town in any part of the country.
Through an alternating series of flashbacks and current narrations, we follow the life of Wesley Carver, his wife Claire, his step-son Dennis, and assorted friends, co-workers, and relatives. The story of the prison riot and its impact on his life is the center piece. The theme of faith, forgiveness, goodness and evil provides the underpinnings. Watching Wes as he works through his grief over Claire's death, his feelings about the impending parole hearing for the prisoner who held him hostage, his relationship with his estranged step-son, and how he deals with the loss of the musical ability he took such joy in gives the reader a poignant tale of heart-breaking beauty.
The writing is clean, poetic, full of imagery and emotion. The story is short (only 232 pages,) and well-paced, without an extra word, but with the ability to paint scenes that bring us to tears. Even the ending is exceptional.
This is the best book I've read this year. I can't wait to see more by this author.
Wes was a prison guard at
Add in a troubled teen with a shining musical talent and this could end up as a smarmy Lifetime movie. But this was nothing like that.
Quiet writing, like Kent Haruf, but not quite- it captured the beauty and danger of Montana's mountains, and of the people who live there. Wes is far from perfect, and often unlikable. Actually, every person in this book has flaws. But they all try, and each has at least one thing that makes him/her a better person.
Ultimately, this is about grief. Wes lost his faith when he lost his fiddle, he never really understood his father's death, his wife has passed, and his relationship with his stepson is in shambles. But, one at a time, he tries to come to terms and make what he can better. In his own, gritty, gruff Montana way. Kudos to Ms. Hulse for writing a gritty and gruff, yet tender, book that's no where near the Lifetime or Hallmark channels.
4.5 stars.
It is a story about relationships. The
But the story revolves around Wes, his past and his inability to leave it behind. And although a basically good man, he has left a trail of disappointment and sorrow and anger behind him.
Animals are part of the story, but it is not about animal abuse, so those who, like I, hate to read about that should be fine with this book.
My only complaint is that the book sometimes seem a little too one-note, that the physical and emotional results of that prison riot, sometimes crowd out the rest of the story.
Despite that nit, this is a satisfying story with terrific atmosphere and characters I cared about.
I was given an advance readers copy of the book for review.
Review Copy Gratis Amazon Vine
Wes Carver is an ex-corrections officer
Wes views the world in black and white and he has a very rigid definition of right and wrong. From a generation that carries pain and sorrow deep inside, he does not discuss past mistakes or wrong decisions. Wes is very stoic and unable to articulate his emotions. He is a good man, but his career as a corrections officer coupled with his long held beliefs make it virtually impossible for him to judge a man on his own merits. Underneath Wes's pragmatic and unemotional demeanor is a deeply spiritual and immensely talented man whose search for faith is challenged by the loss of his ability to play the fiddle and newly discovered information about Bobby Williams.
Wes and Dennis's reunion is uneasy and fraught with tension. Their unresolved history hovers between them and they step very carefully around one another. Wes is surprised by the changes in Dennis but their past issues sometimes bring glimpses of the boy he used to know to the surface. Wes ignores the opportunities to get to the root of their issues and when he reverts to his old patterns, he destroys what little progress the two men have made in repairing their fractured relationship.
Black River is a poignant novel of healing that is quite compelling. The characters are deeply flawed but sympathetic. Their conflicts are believable and easy to relate to. S. M. Hulse provides a realistic conclusion to the story and while not everything is fully resolved, the overall ending is satisfying and hopeful. All in all, a very impressive debut novel that is incredibly moving and one that I heartily recommend.
I think I maybe heard S.M. Hulse was about to come out with a new book (and