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Once upon a River
Hardcover, 348 pages, W W Norton & Co Inc, List Price: $25.95 | purchase
Book Summary
Margo Crane, a beauty and uncanny markswoman takes to the Stark River after being complicit in the death of her father and embarks on an odyssey in search of her vanished mother in this novel from the National Book Award finalist. 30,000 first printing.
Genres:
This book is about:
- Voyages and travels,
- Survival,
- River life,
- Death,
- Fathers,
- Bildungsromans,
- Teenage girls,
- Fiction
NPR stories about Once upon a River
Best Books Of 2011
Plot Driven: Alan Cheuse's Top 5 Fiction Picks
The Stark River, Bonnie Jo Campbell writes of her invented central Michigan setting in Once Upon a River, "flows around the oxbow at Murrayville the way blood flowed through Margo Crane's heart ..." Whether upstream or downstream, Campbell's full-blooded young heroine wants to make her own way.
Like her idol, sharpshooter Annie Oakley, she has a knack for target shooting, a skill that changes the 16-year-old's life when, after having been raped by her uncle, she shoots him in... more
—Alan Cheuse
Book Reviews
Wild Water: 'River' Runs Deep With Ferocity, Heart
July 11, 2011 Bonnie Jo Campbell's Once Upon a River is a violent but inspiring tale, packed with colorful river dwellers, factory workers, farmers, hunters, housewives and, at its center, a teenage girl with an iron gut and a heart to match.
Critics' Lists: Summer 2011
Books Preview: Spotting Summer's High Fliers
May 31, 2011 The season of pleasure reading is upon us, and the publishing world has readied a handful of thrilling titles to be released just in time for the summer heat. After surveying the crop, here are our picks for fun reading in the sun.
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