The River Home

A Return to the Carolina Low Country

Title Details

Pages: 224

Illustrations: 16 illus.

Trim size: 5.500in x 8.250in

Formats

Paperback

Pub Date: 03/01/1998

ISBN: 9-780-8203-1998-8

List Price: $22.95

Related Subjects

NATURE / Essays

The River Home

A Return to the Carolina Low Country

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  • Description
  • Reviews
The American river has a rich literary heritage, extending from Twain and Thoreau to the more recent journeys of John Graves and Jonathan Raban. Following in this great tradition, Franklin Burroughs chronicles a canoe voyage through the Carolinas, visiting his ancestral homeland and the people who inhabit the banks of the Waccamaw River. His account of this distinctive and rapidly disintegrating backwater reflects on life on and off the river, topography, and how this landscape echoes in the speech, memories, and circumstances of the people he encounters. Their lives provide a kind of living archaeology, and Burroughs's careful descriptions of their voices and habits open a door into history. As quiet and powerful as a river itself, this is a wise and beautifully written narrative of nature, people, and place by one of America's finest writers.

The hot-damnedest literary canoe trip since John Graves' Goodbye to a River.

—John. G. Mitchell

The River Home is a wonderful book. If you're interested in South Carolina history in general or the human condition in particular, this trip down the Waccamaw is a must.

South Carolina Historical Magazine

This is a jewel of a book, a well-baited hook for those who rue a world too fast a-changing.

Publishers Weekly

About the Author/Editor

FRANKLIN BURROUGHS grew up in South Carolina and now lives in Maine, where he teaches at Bowdoin College.