Not the Same River

Note from Patricia: At the Faulkner Conference, where I was awarded the Faulkner-Wisdom gold medal for fiction, an agent told me that my literary novel would have popular appeal. I think that it also has crossover potential with a story line involving the 34-year-old protagonist’s 16-year-old daughter. It is an upmarket story with book group appeal.

Read Patricia Barone’s full bio.

Ring Lake, our Minnesota village, overlooked Lake Heron, an indwelling of the Mississippi River. Only from the bluffs was it possible to understand how our town got its name. Ring Lake’s circular double peninsulas remained after glaciers scoured the river valley leaving an escarpment above, like land above a gravel-quarry swimming hole.

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Outside again, I felt the sun beat against the white sky and cement walk. Cars farted burnt oil from their tailpipes. “Lunch at Parasols?” We took a bus back to Constance and Third streets, where an old white frame building offered a green door into another cool cave. After quenching my thirst with water, I sipped a chablis. His Falstaff sat there sweating. I looked down at my plate and up. His irises were the color of mint tea. After we finished eating, he let go of my hand long enough to look at the menu again. He ordered fried okra and onion rings. “Let’s just pick,” he said. Very New Orleans, not wanting the meal to end. Very personal.

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Seija watched as Carver, strapped to the gurney, was carried to the ambulance. After it left, sirens screaming, she turned to see, through the haze of smoke, an eerie image of disembodied hands above Carver’s car. Policemen, wearing white gloves, were searching it. An officer, his head in the trunk, straightened up, holding something in his hand.

Addie Kytonen (34) wonders if former priest Malachy Cuthbert (35) is pursuing more than a master’s degree in library science. After marching for civil rights in Northern Ireland, he works for a fellow ex-patriot’s seafood business, traveling widely in the United States. As Addie falls in love with Malachy, who is the second cousin of her ex-husband Vincent Harney (35), she remembers the summers when the three of them played together as children. Malachy was sent to Ring Lake, Minnesota, to escape the violence in Northern Ireland. Vincent, a solitary boy with a secret, welcomes his cousin’s visits, but Addie feels excluded from their games. Vincent is too rough when he tackles Malachy in a football game after Malachy says that Addie is the prettiest girl he has ever seen.

This tangle of emotion plays out in the novel. For Addie, the Mississippi River is her life. Malachy remembers how the three of them went to the source of the river with Addie’s family. Now they have come to the mouth of the river to reveal themselves.

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