Review: Once Upon a River

I bought a Kindle last week, finally, and my first book was from an author that has intrigued me for a few years, primarily because Bonnie Jo Campbell (National Book Award finalist last year) comes from the same southwestern Michigan corner of the world as me. She hails from Comstock, a small town right outside of Kalamazoo, which is the biggest city near my hometown of South Haven. I grew up next to the Black River, a tributary of the Kalamazoo River about which Campbell writes in this text. Besides the geography, the book has gotten some bang-up reviews, and I had to read it.

I wasn't disappointed. Once Upon a River recounts the journey of Margo, a tough 15-year old girl who is left alone after her mother leaves her and her father dies. She takes off in her beloved late grandfather's boat, and journeys on the river, mostly fending for herself but developing relationships along the way.

Told in 3rd person limited narration, with the focus squarely on Margot, I was sometimes frustrated by the character. "Talk," I'd want to say, or, "Don't you see what he's doing to you?". But then I remembered that, despite her self-sufficiency (with her hunting, she rivals Katniss from The Hunger Games), she's a lonely and pained 16-year old kid.

In interviews, I've heard Campbell eschew the Huckleberry Finn comparison a bit in favor of The Odyssey, but they're both there. There were some passages -- such as ones in which Margot reveals her distaste for society and for organized education, or the ones in which Margot discovers her only peace while floating on the river -- that were strikingly similar to something a modern Huck would say. I understand the odyssey comparisons, too; the novel's journey structure is episodic, but the episodes are punctuated by relationships Margot has, rather than monsters she must conquer or outsmart. The lonely men on the river that she meets -- the book is divided into four major relationships she has -- see her as a river goddess, seemingly not a part of their dingy world. Finally, with her last relationship, she meets someone who sees her as a person, and not some sort of mystical creature.

Like with Huckleberry Finn, and The Odyssey, the episodic structure leads to some natural stops and starts in the narrative. In between her relationships, as Margot escapes one painful situation to find her next one, things slow down, like water flowing around a bend in the river. At these points, we are left with some harsh and beautiful descriptions of the natural world, in spare and poetic language that often reminded me of Steinbeck. The men in the novel, who could have been drawn as stock villains, are, surprisingly, often more sympathetic than the narrator (particularly the character Michael, not so much the college professor character). Don't get me wrong; I often ached for the protagonist, so the fact that the more minor characters of the men came off as sympathetic as they were is a testament to Campbell's characterization skills.

The ending of the novel is stone beautiful, a melding of the natural and human imagery that recalls Mary Oliver's poetry. Margot has survived, somehow, and she will be alright.

Someday, when this novel goes into paperback, I think I'd like to teach it to 9th graders alongside The Odyssey.