Book Review / Gone To See The River Man

Sorry for a bit of inactivity. I just finished two books back to back, The Sluts yesterday and The Cement Garden just today. I've been busy and doing bullshit activities like painting with oil pastels and learning that oil pastel dust can get into your lungs and fuck you up if inhaled long and plentiful enough without proper insulation. My throat is itchy and my lips are dry as fuck. 

Moving off of the tangent about my life.

During the disaster of a month I've been having I'd meant to write a quick blog about Gone to See The Riverman by Kristopher Triana and only now (a month later) do I feel like sitting down and actually doing that.

To preface, I'm not a professional at reviewing books or anything, so if anything it's more of my personal experience with them and the thoughts that were stirred after I sat around with it. The Sluts & The Cement Garden are not getting a blog dedicated to them only because I haven't sat with them long enough yet. There are no big spoilers that'll ruin the novel in this post. Anyways.

Gone to See The Riverman

Initially I'd rated this book a fat chunk of 4.75/5 on TheStoryGraph but after sitting around with it, I changed it to 3.5/5. I was just starting to get into splatterpunk novels when I'd found this book. I've not been a big reader until this year, as most Ao3 fics don't count as books, but I've been conducting research about the topic of incest and the ways it's portrayed in fiction. (though, this topic is for another time.) River Man was recommended under a post on reddit titled 'Books with incest as horror?' or something like that, so I'd put it on a reading list and forgot about it. Until June 26th when I finished it, and now today that I'm talking about it.

Quick Summary: The main character is Lori, a lonely middle-aged woman stuck taking care of her disabled (that fact is crucial) sister. She's infatuated with an imprisoned killer, Edmund Cox, who she claims to have a unique connection with, and to whom she writes letters to every day. Edmund asks her to retrieve a key from his cabin in the woods and to, rather than give it to him, return it to 'The River Man.' Along the way, we learn more about Lori's past.

I present you the list of content warnings in this book from TheStoryGraph: Incest, Rape, Murder, Eating Disorder, Ableism, Child Death, Vomit, Death of Parent, and War.

Now, I really liked this novel a lot at first which is why I gave it a 4.75/5 right after finishing it. Looking back with a more critical eye, I want to say that the story is honestly Not All That.

Regarding the element of Incest and Rape (they come together, both at once, if you need to know,) it can feel like shock value if you were looking for the nuance in those topics like I was. It wasn't made with the purpose to tackle these topics in specific though, and its main job seems more to be inducing horror (though, for me, just gave me a lot of anger and hatred for a character) using said topics.

Does it do well on that front (AKA is it scary?) This is going to be a bit subjective. It was a bit tense and unnerved me at (very few) times, and while I was super invested in and enjoying the story; it wasn't really because of the horror part but for its writing (lol.) The start and the end of the novel are the highlights, though the latter part does feel a bit cliche. But like I mentioned, I enjoyed the writing a lot. Specifically the way he describes the atmosphere, gore, and gross viscera was absolutely GORGEOUS. I don't think I would've kept reading if it wasn't for that.

The prose and writing is what adds so much to my experience. Actually, it's worth reading for that alone if you're not queasy about anything written above. I think it's a simple and not very complicated story, executed just well enough to pass as good, which might be why the story didn't leave much of an impact on me. There is a couple scenes however that does stick with me for its descriptions, which I'd like to describe as Crass, Gross, Vile, Beautiful, and I'm Going To Absorb His Writing Style. Note that dialogue is definitely somewhat a weak spot of the writing though and I dare say... a little corny at times.

TL;DR

Story? Decent. Writing? I'm rock hard for it. Characters? Pisses me the fuck off. Scary? Find out for yourself, not really scary for me though. Shocking/Unexpected? Definitely. I don't have a criteria for rating books as that seems weirdly strict and restrictive, I pulled 3.5/5 out of my ass of holy intuition.