Shadow Country, Book 2: Lost Man's River, by Peter Matthiessen

"over the dry scrape of palmetto, in the sunny wind"

Book two of the trilogy was I must admit a little disappointing, especially after how much I enjoyed the swashbuckling and rollicking first book.

Lost Man’s River focuses on ‘Bloody” Watson’s son, Lucius, and his search for the truth behind his father’s death, as well as the truth of all the supposed murders his father committed but were never proven.

I found myself bored — very bored — a lot. And my quibble from the first book — about how it felt like some important plot points hit the cutting room floor during the re-editing — became more than just a quibble. Several times I had to ask myself: wait, why he is going back there?

Also, and this is a weird one, it felt kind of anachronistic. It’s supposedly set in the late 1920s and early 1930s — though the author is pretty squishy about that — but it felt like it was set in the 1960s. Like Matthiessen had forgotten when he set his very own novel. It was distracting. I didn’t like it.

All that said, the third act is a shocking, brilliant, and a true page turner (I missed my bus stop I was so engrossed yesterday morning!). I wouldn’t say it redeemed itself completely, and the writing still felt a little sloppy, and it didn’t hit the high bar it set for itself in the first book, but I definitely was no longer bored.

And while the page-by-page motivations of the story were still maddeningly lacking in places, the over-arching motivation became crystal clear: this is a man, Lucius, who just simply misses his dad. And is grieving his dad in the only he knows how. It hit me like a ton of bricks somewhere in the third act and put the entire book into a brand new bright light.

Also the quote in the pre-header includes one of the best descriptions of weather I’ve ever come across. “Sunny wind” … damn that’s good.

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I will continue to recommend this book to anyone looking for an immersive, American story. But I am not sure I am going to straight into book 3. We’ll see.

And on that note: I am going to take the summer off from the newsletter. This will be the last one until sometime after Labor Day, where I will sum up all my summer reading.

Until then: thanks for reading!

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