Product Description

For more than a century, the small town of Haddan, Massachusetts, has been divided, as if by a line drawn down the centre of Main Street, separating those born and bred in the 'village' from those who attend the prestigious Haddan School. But one October night the two worlds are thrust together by an inexplicable death and the town's divided history is revealed in all its complexity. The lives of everyone involved are unravelled: from Carlin Leander, the fifteen year old girl who is as loyal as she is proud, to Betsy Chase, a woman running from her own destiny; from August Pierce, a boy who unexpectedly finds courage in his darkest hour, to Abel Grey, the police officer who refuses to let unspeakable actions - both past and present - slide by without notice. This is a novel as compelling as it is daring, an exploration of forgiveness and hope, a magical tale of innocence and evil and of the secrets that lurk beneath the most ordinary lives.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52258 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Alice Hoffman beautifully choreographs the battle between nature and civilisation to mirror the action in her mesmerising 13th novel The River King. Although set in the contemporary, three block-long village of Haddan, Massachusetts, its enchanting gothic flavour makes it feel like a much earlier era. Haddan School, built perilously close to the river in 1858, "had been fashioned out of river rock, grey slabs flecked with mica", and the cupboards have a "distinctly weedy odour". The school's folklore matches its mid-19th century beginnings with tales of blood-seeped roses, a hanging from the rafters and people lead astray by the "pale green light rising from the river each evening" into "fields rife with late-blooming asters and milkweed".

The four outsiders at the novel's heart are brought together by the dramatic forces of love and death: two new students, Gus, a rebellious, hapless loner; Carlin, a beautiful swimmer from Florida; Betsy, the unconventional photography teacher trapped in a conventional engagement, and Abel, the local cop who comes to the school to investigate a drowning. After a tragic flood, the novel picks up pace and switches from gothic horror to detective story with hints of The X Files. A ghost appears in Betsy's photos and leaves mementoes from the river all around the school. When the drowned corpse is found to have faecal matter in its lungs in a cleaned-up river, the plot takes on echoes of Chinatown and is no less riveting for that.

Although Hoffman misses some of the menace and narrative drive of a true thriller, her portrait of a secluded world, which has developed its own secrets, rules and inability to confront evil, weaves a murky and disturbing spell. --Cherry Smyth

The Times
'...Alice Hoffman is queen of the 'burbs and an authority on American, small town weirdness...'

Independent
‘The language rewards, as the story engrosses’

Customer Reviews

dreamy and compulsive
i lost a lot of sleep reading this book, but i have to say that sitting up til 3 this morning was worth it!! Sad, and yet satisfyingly happy at the end, alice hoffman's prose has a dreamy quality that i can't quite describe accurately.... the story itself has elements of a ghost story, a love story, and detective fiction, but it wasn't definably any one of the three. Basically, two new pupils arrive at the Haddan school one year, and the plot revolves around them, whether present or not, a new teacher at the school, and an unconventional local policeman. It would ruin the plot to say exactly what happens, but the characters are convincingly drawn, and your sympathies are with them all the way through. suffice it to say that the scent of roses seems to pervade the book as much as the river water seems to seep into Haddan itself...

one of Hoffman's best tales -beats The Secret History hollow
If you've only seen the film of Practical Magic you may have entirely the wrong idea about the wonderful Alice Hoffman,one of the most enchanting US writers alive. This is among her best books, set in a snooty East Coast school said to be haunted by the dead wife of the master -a woman who loved roses and swans, whose suicide laid a cirse on the place. The new pupils are Gus, a brilliant misfit, and Carlin a beautiful but poor swimming scholar. Gus falls for Carlin, but she is seduced by the grooviest boy in school who also is ringleader in a gang of notorious bullies. Their initiation ceremonies have caused numerous students to break down or drop out, and the latest victim is Gus, whom Carlin continues to befriend. But then Gus's drowned body is found in the river, and both town and school need the assistance of the supernatural to work out how he was murdered....Hoffman writes with such lyricism it's easy to miss the dry humour, the compassion and the wisdom. I've read all her novels, but this is particularly satisfying and good.

Hoffmann at her best!
Having read the majority of Hoffmann's books, I can say for sure that the this is one of her best. Great characters, that develop through the story. The story itself is captivating and it contains all the elements, we love from her books: a hint of magic, love and personality... Absolutely loved it - I wish, Í could read it for the first time again!