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The River King Taschenbuch – 1. Juli 2001
Kaufoptionen und Plus-Produkte
People tend to stay in their place in the town of Haddan. The students at the prestigious prep school don't mix with locals; even within the school, hierarchy rules as freshman and faculty members find out where they fit in and what is expected from them. But there are minor collisions happening everywhere: An awkward boy, the son of a teacher, is flirting with a pretty classmate, the daughter of a convenience-store cashier. A photographer in plastic flip-flops and an overflowing backpack is about to marry a staid, ambitious historian. And when a body is found in the river behind the school, a local policeman named Abey Grey will walk into this enclosed world and upset it entirely...
- Länge
352
Seiten
- Originalsprache
EN
Englisch
- HerausgeberBerkley
- Erscheinungstermin
2001
Juli 1
- Abmessungen
13.2 x 2.4 x 20.2
cm
- ISBN-100425179672
- ISBN-13978-0425179673
- Lexile-Bewertung1160L
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Produktbeschreibungen
Pressestimmen
“Graceful, beguiling, and quirky...Reading her book is like having a dream that haunts even after we awaken.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Rewarding…a novel not to be missed.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Set in and around an exclusive private school in fictional Haddan, Mass., bestselling author Hoffman’s latest novel flows as swiftly and limpidly as the Haddan River, the town’s mystical waterway…As ever, Hoffman mixes myth, magic and reality, addressing issues of town and gown, enchanting her readers with a many-layered morality tale and proving herself once again an inventive author with a distinctive touch.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Suspenseful and engrossing.”—Denver Rocky Mountain News
“It can be hard to find an example of good old-fashioned storytelling these days, but storytelling, refreshingly, is Alice Hoffman’s strength...The River King is full of wonderfully and satisfyingly odd twists and turns.”—The New York Times Book Review
Über den Autor und weitere Mitwirkende
Leseprobe. Abdruck erfolgt mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Rechteinhaber. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.
The Haddan School was built in 1858 on the sloping banks of the Haddan River, a muddy and precarious location that had proven disastrous from the start. That very first year, when the whole town smelled of cedar shavings, there was a storm of enormous proportions, with winds so strong that dozens of fish were drawn up from the reedy shallows, then lifted above the village in a shining cloud of scales. Torrents of water fell from the sky, and by morning the river had overflowed, leaving the school’s freshly painted white clapboard buildings adrift in a murky sea of duckweed and algae.
For weeks, students were ferried to classes in rowboats; catfish swam through flooded perennial gardens, observing the disaster with cool, glassy eyes. Every evening, at twilight, the school cook balanced on a second-story window ledge, then cast out his rod to catch dozens of silver trout, a species found only in the currents of the Haddan River, a sweet, fleshy variety that was especially delectable when fried with shallots and oil. After the flood subsided, two inches of thick, black silt covered the carpets in the dormitories; at the headmaster’s house, mosquitoes began to hatch in sinks and commodes. The delightful watery vistas of the site, a landscape abundant with willows and water lotus, had seduced the foolish trustees into building much too close to the river, an architectural mistake that has never been rectified. To this day, frogs can be found in the plumbing; linens and clothes stored in closets have a distinctly weedy odor, as if each article had been washed in river water and never thoroughly dried.
After the flood, houses in town had to be refloored and re-roofed; public buildings were torn down, then refashioned from cellar to ceiling. Whole chimneys floated down Main Street, with some of them still issuing forth smoke. Main Street itself had become a river, with waters more than six feet deep. Iron fences were loosened and ripped from the earth, leaving metal posts in the shape of arrows adrift. Horses drowned; mules floated for miles and when rescued, refused to eat anything but wild celery and duckweed. Poison sumac was uprooted and deposited in vegetable bins, only to be mistakenly cooked along with the carrots and cabbages, a recipe that led to several untimely deaths. Bobcats showed up on back porches, mewing and desperate for milk; several were found beside babies in their cradles, sucking from bottles and purring as though they were house cats let in through front doors.
At that time, the rich fields circling the town of Haddan were owned by prosperous farmers who cultivated asparagus and onions and a peculiar type of yellow cabbage known for its large size and delicate fragrance. These farmers put aside their plows and watched as boys arrived from every corner of the Commonwealth and beyond to take up residence at the school, but even the wealthiest among them were unable to afford tuition for their own sons. Local boys had to make do with the dusty stacks at the library on Main Street and whatever fundamentals they might learn in their very own parlors and fields. To this day, people in Haddan retain a rustic knowledge of which they are proud. Even the children can foretell the weather; they can point to and name every constellation in the sky.
A dozen years after the Haddan School was built, a public high school was erected in the neighboring town of Hamilton, which meant a five-mile trek to classes on days when the snow was knee-deep and the weather so cold even the badgers kept to their dens. Each time a Haddan boy walked through a storm to the public school his animosity toward the Haddan School grew, a small bump on the skin of ill will ready to rupture at the slightest contact. In this way a hard bitterness was forged, and the spiteful sentiment increased every year, until there might as well have been a fence dividing those who came from the school and the residents of the village. Before long, anyone who dared to cross that line was judged to be either a martyr or a fool.
There was a time when it seemed possible for the separate worlds to be united, when Dr. George Howe, the esteemed headmaster, considered to be the finest in the Haddan School history, decided to marry Annie Jordan, the most beautiful girl in the village. Annie’s father was a well-respected man who owned a parcel of farmland out where Route 17 now runs into the interstate, and he approved of the marriage, but soon after the wedding it became apparent that Haddan would remain divided. Dr. Howe was jealous and vindictive; he turned local people away from his door. Even Annie’s family was quickly dispatched. Her father and brothers, good, simple men with mud on their boots, were struck mute the few times they came to call, as if the bone china and leather-bound books had robbed them of their tongues. Before long people in town came to resent Annie, as if she’d somehow betrayed them. If she thought she was so high and mighty, in that fine house by the river, then the girls she grew up with felt they had reason to retaliate, and on the streets they passed her by without a word. Even her own dog, a lazy hound named Sugar, ran away yelping on those rare occasions when Annie came to visit her father’s farm.
It quickly became clear that the marriage had been a horrid mistake; anyone more worldly than Annie would have known this from the start. At his very own wedding, Dr. Howe had forgotten his hat, always the sign of a man who’s bound to stray. He was the sort of person who wished to own his wife, without belonging to her in return. There were days when he spoke barely a sentence in his own home, and nights when he didn’t come in until dawn. It was loneliness that led Annie to begin her work in the gardens at Haddan, which until her arrival were neglected, ruined patches filled with ivy and nightshade, dark vines that choked out any wildflowers that might have grown in the thin soil. As it turned out, Annie’s loneliness was the school’s good fortune, for it was she who designed the brick walkways that form an hourglass and who, with the help of six strong boys, saw to the planting of the weeping beeches beneath whose branches many girls still receive their first kiss. Annie brought the original pair of swans to reside at the bend in the river behind the headmaster’s house, ill-tempered, wretched specimens rescued from a farmer in Hamilton whose wife plucked their bloody feathers for soft, plump quilts. Each evening, before supper, when the light above the river washed the air with a green haze, Annie went out with an apronful of old bread. She held the firm belief that scattering bread crumbs brought happiness, a condition she herself had not known since her wedding day.
There are those who vow that swans are unlucky, and fishermen in particular despise them, but Annie loved her pets; she could call them to her with a single cry. At the sound of her sweet voice the birds lined up as politely as gentlemen; they ate from her hands without ever once drawing blood, favoring crusts of rye bread and whole-wheat crackers. As a special treat, Annie often brought whole pies, leftovers from the dining room. In a wicker basket, she piled up apple cobbler and wild raspberry tart, which the swans gobbled down nearly whole, so that their beaks were stained crimson and their bellies took on the shapes of medicine balls.
Even those who were certain Dr. Howe had made a serious error in judgment in choosing his bride had to admire Annie’s gardens. In no time the perennial borders were thick with rosy-pink foxglove and cream-colored lilies, each of which hung like a pendant, collecting dew on its satiny petals. But it was with her roses that Annie had the best luck of all, and among the more jealous members of the Haddan garden club, founded that very year in an...
Produktinformation
- Herausgeber : Berkley; Reissue Edition (1. Juli 2001)
- Sprache : Englisch
- Taschenbuch : 352 Seiten
- ISBN-10 : 0425179672
- ISBN-13 : 978-0425179673
- Abmessungen : 13.23 x 2.36 x 20.22 cm
- Amazon Bestseller-Rang: Nr. 3,105,493 in Bücher (Siehe Top 100 in Bücher)
- Nr. 839 in Krimis über Geister
- Nr. 1,495 in Thriller über Mord
- Nr. 36,924 in Polizei-Krimis
- Kundenrezensionen:
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Set in fictional Haddan, Mass., the story revolves around the divide between a snooty private boarding school and the town itself. The Haddan School was built on the banks of the muddy Haddan River in 1858, the year of a horrific storm which flooded the town and the new school worst of all so that: "To this day, frogs can be found in the plumbing; linens and clothes stored in closets have a distinctly weedy odor, as if each article had been washed in river water and never thoroughly dried."
Each five-mile trek to the nearest public high school in "weather so cold the badgers kept to their dens" increased the locals' animosity toward the boarding school, "a small bump on the skin of ill will ready to rupture at the slightest contact." But over the years town and gown have reached an accommodation. The school gives money and the town stays out of school affairs.
Into this atmosphere come two new students, poor but strikingly beautiful Carlin Leander, and quirky, brilliant misfit August Pierce. Long desperate to escape her rural Florida home, Carlin has gained admittance on a swimming scholarship and has high hopes that Haddan will be the start of her new and better life. August has no such illusions. For him, this is just the latest in a misery of schools, though he hopes to stick it out for his father's sake.
But Carlin fits in no better than August who has been admitted to the moldiest and most exclusive of the dorms by dint of his on-paper accomplishments. While Carlin discovers that her clothes are impossible and her roommates don't even speak the same language, August's housemates band together against him. An unlikely duo, drawn together by despair, the two become best friends until Carlin, flattered, begins dating the most popular, most handsome boy on campus, August's chief enemy, a boy of easy charm and loathsomeness.
Vaguely aware of the emotional maelstrom ever brewing among their students are new teacher Betsy Chase, who supervises Carlin's dorm, (St. Anne's, so called because a beautiful local girl, who married an esteemed headmaster, hung herself in its attic) and her fiancé, Eric Herman, an aloof, ambitious sort who supervises August's dorm.
When a student drowns, the Haddan Police Department quickly accedes to the school's wishes and closes the case. Except for one detective, Abel Grey, whose brother committed suicide at about the same age and whose lonely life has been haunted and emotionally arid ever since. Investigating at the school, Abel meets Betsy and it's love at first sight, though Betsy remains committed to her wedding plans.
As Abel's investigation gathers momentum, the various characters are forced to take sides. Their decisions and actions reveal inner cores of weakness or strength. The story moves toward a mythic climax, but each decision is individual, quirky and human. Hoffman's protagonists are appealing and real, complete with uncertainties, selfishness, fears and courage.
The atmosphere, tinged with otherworldliness, with ghostly presences wafting through the hallways and lingering at the fringes, lends a timeless, bittersweet melancholy to an affirming, enchanting story of love, personal integrity and hope.
Spitzenrezensionen aus anderen Ländern
This story centres around a town split in two, with a posh boarding school on one side of the river, and the townsfolk on the other. Never the twain shall meet - and when they do, trouble ensues. I won't go into the details of the story becuase I don't want to give away any spoilers, but it's a lovely and enthralling tale that held me spellboud. Life in the boarding school, needless to say, is not all sweetness and roses (and roses are key to this story). Life on the other side of the river seems like a pretty fairytale, but at the heart of the town is some serious corruption. When a boy from the school seems to be drowned and Abe, one of the local detectives can't let it go, trouble ensues.
As I said, this is a magical tale. It's deeply tragic too, with some horrific bullying at the heart of it - and one of Alice Hoffman's real skills is to deal with this, not to lecture but to show the heartache and pain and suffering of the victims and those who are 'stuck' on the outside looking in, unable to intervene. It is a love story too - a love story with nature, with the concept that 'good' will eventually triumph, and there's true romance flung in for good measure - really lovely romance, actually.
This is real feel-good story telling. I was left very happy, and with a big smile on my face. Loved, loved, loved it.
What I love about this is what I love about all her novels - the wry, poetic prose style, the brilliant characters, the literary sensibility married to a solid, meaty plot - and most of all, the generous compassion she has for all these flawed, unhappy people. Hoffman, I sense, believes in people, that they are fundamentally good (With one or two exceptions) and that makes a refreshing change from much of modern fiction.
The River King is a literary novel with the plot motor of a murder-mystery. A bullied student at the snobbish, privileged Haddan School is found dead, floating in the nearby river, and the story then investigates the lives of the student, his friends and enemies, his teachers, and that of a righteous, honest police detective who senses that the death was not suicide and who investigates mulishly, doggedly, tirelessly, even though he puts his own friendships and livelihood at risk. You'll end up wanting this guy to be your dad.
And while this goes on the story comments on so much else - loneliness, bullying, the horrible practice of "hazing", of guilt-by-proxy, of strange weather, of unreasonable parental pressure, of small, poor lives given a new chance, of the resentment of townsfolk for the rich students of the posh school across the road, of wrong choices, and above all of love, and redemption, and hope.
And a one-eyed cat, and some very surly swans.