
Riverman
An American Odyssey
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Narrated by:
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Adam Verner
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By:
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Ben McGrath
“This quietly profound book belongs on the shelf next to Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild.” —The New York Times
The riveting true story of Dick Conant, an American folk hero who, over the course of more than twenty years, canoed solo thousands of miles of American rivers—and then disappeared near the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This book “contains everything: adventure, mystery, travelogue, and unforgettable characters” (David Grann, best-selling author of Killers of the Flower Moon).
For decades, Dick Conant paddled the rivers of America, covering the Mississippi, Yellowstone, Ohio, Hudson, as well as innumerable smaller tributaries. These solo excursions were epic feats of planning, perseverance, and physical courage. At the same time, Conant collected people wherever he went, creating a vast network of friends and acquaintances who would forever remember this brilliant and charming man even after a single meeting.
Ben McGrath, a staff writer at The New Yorker, was one of those people. In 2014 he met Conant by chance just north of New York City as Conant paddled down the Hudson, headed for Florida. McGrath wrote a widely read article about their encounter, and when Conant's canoe washed up a few months later, without any sign of his body, McGrath set out to find the people whose lives Conant had touched--to capture a remarkable life lived far outside the staid confines of modern existence.
Riverman is a moving portrait of a complex and fascinating man who was as troubled as he was charismatic, who struggled with mental illness and self-doubt, and was ultimately unable to fashion a stable life for himself; who traveled alone and yet thrived on connection and brought countless people together in his wake. It is also a portrait of an America we rarely see: a nation of unconventional characters, small river towns, and long-forgotten waterways.
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Critic reviews
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker
“A portrait of forgotten American byways and the eccentric characters who populate them, a cursory history of river travel in America and, not least, an effort to solve the riddle of Conant himself — not only his whereabouts but also his elusive and irresistible nature.… In an age when everything is relentlessly online and the real world is increasingly mediated through screens, Conant and his canoe represent something slower and quieter, closer to nature.”
—Gregory Cowles, The New York Times
"McGrath retraces the remarkable life of this gentle man whose life on the water touched so many. Riverman honors a free-spirited American naturalist and modern-day explorer (a blend of Forrest Gump, Huck Finn, and even Don Quixote) who shucked a conventional lifestyle for complete freedom, at significant personal cost. A masterpiece of narrative nonfiction."
—Booklist, starred
"McGrath exquisitely recovers the life of the affable transcontinental canoeist who had intrigued him when they once met on the Hudson River...McGrath does more than chronicle Conant’s life through the folkways and lives of those in the river towns he visited; he evokes a magical, almost wistful, dimension to this genial, manatee-shaped character in overalls."
—The National Book Review
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More importantly. I’m getting my canoe ready for an extended voyage . This story was really a great find !
Great book great story
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Incredible Story
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Pace moved slowly
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Interesting story, less than crazy about the narrator
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captivating book!
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Intriguing
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Something--it's hard to say what--drew the author to Conant and led him to profile his life, particularly his life on the river. The story meanders, much as a river flows, which seems appropriate. Along the way we meet many interesting characters who met Conant. Many were affected by Conant, even though he drifted in an out of their lives only briefly.
This is an interesting book that provided a nice diversion as I listened to it off and on over a week or so. The narration is quite good.
Interesting Story of a Wanderer
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What a life!
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Interesting but a bit tedious
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Superb on every count
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