The River Within: A Novel by Karen Powell

A novel about infatuation, class, and obligation, The River Within will take its place as a classic in a tradition of English fiction that takes in Thomas Hardy, Graham Swift, and Helen Dunmore. n nIt is the summer of 1955. The body of Danny Masters is found by three of his friends in the river that runs through Starome, a village on the Richmond estate in North Yorkshire. n nAlexander, one of the three friends that found Danny and the sole heir to Richmond Hall, has always been unpredictable but lately he has grown elusive, his behaviour becoming increasingly erratic. His mother, Lady Venetia Richmond, is newly widowed and too busy trying to keep the sprawling family estate together to worry about Alexander, though she could use his help. n nA second friend, Lennie Fairweather, child of nature and daughter of the late Sir Angus Richmond's private secretary, has other things on her mind too. In love with Alexander, she longs to escape life with her over-protective father and domineering brother, Tom, who was also there when Danny's body was discovered. n nIn the weeks that follow the tragic drowning, the river begins to give up its secrets. As the circumstances surrounding Danny's death emerge, other stories surface that threaten to disrupt everybody's plans and to destroy an entire way of life. n nEditorial Reviews n n01/11/2021 n nPowell's grim, moody debut investigates the death by drowning of a working-class young man in 1950s Yorkshire. The body of Danny Masters, who faced conscription into the armed forces, is discovered in the River Wharfe. First to see him is Lennie Fairweather, a recent high school graduate living with her father in the Gatekeeper's Cottage of Richmond Hall. Danny had been infatuated with Lennie, but she has eyes for Richmond heir Alexander, who is given to addressing her with questions such as, Why are you dressed like such a whore? Alexander has an equally fraught relationship with his recently widowed mother, Venetia, who he believes is romantically entangled with Alexander's uncle James. As the various characters debate whether Danny died by suicide or accident, the details gradually trickle out for the reader. Heavy-handed references to Hamlet abound (Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, reads the epigraph), and by the time the cause of Danny's death has been revealed, several other characters end up dead as well. Powell has a keen understanding of the restrictions imposed by class and gender in postwar England, and the narrative really moves, though the love triangle plot's conundrums are dealt with a bit too conveniently. Still, Powell's sharp insights keep this afloat. Agent: Samuel Hodder, the Blake Friedmann Literary Agency. (Dec.) n- Publishers Weekly n n*[Karen Powell's] novel about love, class, and secrecy in 1950s England reads as if it were written in the era the characters inhabit, her style and tone reminiscent of an earlier generation of reticent yet emotionally brutal writers like Shirley Hazzard and Graham Greene. A mesmerizing escape.--Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) n nPowell has not written a pale imitation of The Crown or Downton Abbey. The River Within contains multitudes; it's a fresh look at the pressures our caste systems place upon all of us, no matter where we come from.--Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times n nHamlet comes to fifties Yorkshire in this compelling riff on love, grief and family strife. Powell is a talent to watch.--Lisa Appignanesi, author of Everyday Madness n nConsistently elegant and absorbing, The River Within is a supremely accomplished first work [ . . . ] Throughout the book, Powell explores friendship, desire, mental health and class divides. She excels with her descriptions of untamed nature, in particular the river, which turns out to be both a vital life force and a watery grave. This is a novel whose shimmering surface conceals hidden depths.--Malcolm Forbes, Minneapolis Star Tribune n nEvocative and engrossing.--Heat Magazine n nA gripping mystery, revealing dark truths around class and love in the aftermath of war, with beautiful prose depicting Yorkshire and life on a country estate.--The Yorkshire Post n nThis is a fine mystery as well as a fine story. People fond of well-written fiction will love this tale of class lines, young angst and our obligation to ourselves and to others.--Linda Bond, Auntie's Bookstore (Spokane, WA) n nThis precisely plotted dramatic mystery, with an extraordinarily personal gaze, is perfect for fans of Kate Atkinson and Susanna Clarke.--Cindy Pauline, The River's End Bookstore (Oswego NY) n- From the Publisher n n12/01/2020 n nThe universe was made up of two types of people, Lennie thought: those who wanted to smash things to pieces and those who wanted to keep the world just as it. In this latest from Powell (Catching the Light), set mainly in early 1950s Yorkshire and winner in draft of the Northern Writers' TLC New Fiction Reads Award, 17-year-old Lennie is out walking with her older brother, Thomas, and her semisecret beau, Alexander, when they encounter the bloated corpse of young sawmill worker Danny Masters afloat in the raging Stride River. Son of the late Sir Angus Richmond, Alexander lives at the once grand, now fraying Richmond Hall with his recently widowed mother, and Lennie's position as daughter of Sir Angus's private secretary makes their closeness difficult indeed. Powell investigates the relationship among these three young people and how Danny's life and death have impacted them, plumbing both personal pain and shifting class assumptions in a quietly affecting story that can only lead to more tragedy. VERDICT Most readers will understand immediately what happened to Danny, but the point is Powell's deft unpacking of human relationships. n- Library Journal n n*2020-10-14 nIn 1955, postwar Britain's socio-economic changes play out in the small Yorkshire village of Starome as local estate Richmond Hall swims against a tide of mounting taxes and death duties. n nThen the drowned body of Danny Masters, a village local, is discovered at river's edge by 17-year-old Lennie Fairweather, her older brother, Tom, and their friend Alexander Richmond. As Danny's aunt says, That river's always been dangerous. Never named, it winds dangerously enough through the lives of Powell's four protagonists: quiet Lennie, whose father's job as private secretary at Richmond Hall has left her in social limbo, fully accepted neither by the village nor the gentry; Cambridge student Alexander, heir to Richmond Hall, who has begun a romantic relationship with Lennie while in confused, angry mourning over his father Angus' recent death; Alexander's mother, Venetia, whose stately role as Lady Richmond belies her insecurities and passions as a wife and mother; Danny himself, a village boy in unrequited love with Lennie though his boyhood friendships with Tom and Alexander ended years before when the two of them left for boarding school. (Intellectually gifted but resentful Tom, whose schooling Angus paid for, represents the angry young men of 1950s British fiction and film.) While Danny remains relatively innocent--pining for Lennie, his only real secret is the volume of Tennyson he's purchased and keeps meaning to give her--his death forces Alexander, Lennie, and Venetia to confront unspoken jealousies and guilts, some more deserved than others. Love triangles abound, as do deaths with unclear causes. But this is not a murder mystery. Despite an unfortunately dated representation of mental illness, Powell shows hard-nosed empathy in portraying individuals' private demons in the context of social realities. Her novel about love, class, and secrecy in 1950s England reads as if it were written in the era the characters inhabit, her style and tone reminiscent of an earlier generation of reticent yet emotionally brutal writers like Shirley Hazzard and Graham Greene. n nA mesmerizing escape. n- Kirkus Reviews