Vallie Lynn Watson's debut novel follows thirty-something Veronica as she jolts between five-star hotels in New Orleans, New York, and the North Carolina coast. Veronica's business keeps her on the move, and further strains her relationships with the already unsuitable men she's met along the way, not to mention her blink-and-you-miss-him husband. A River So Long, like Veronica's life, is a fragmented conflation of time, place, and people-she's a gypsy, and the world she inhabits is, if not blurry, at least kaleidoscopic. This remarkable novel reads like Jean Rhys run over by the twenty-first century-a rushing, threatening, constantly changing scene with a tumultuous, multiplying cast
“A River So Long is a lean and dirty dance through the unhooked lives of its characters, young people with jobs and cares and relationships about which they seem to know next to nothing. Desperately disconnected, they nevertheless keep trying to find each other in the mess of contemporary American life. A splendid almost documentary rendering of the way things go these days.”
–Frederick Barthelme, author of "Waveland", "Chroma", and "Moon Deluxe"
"Watson’s peripatetic modular fiction packs a helluva punch. Here’s an Up in the Air for the nomadic hotel administration set as written by Denis Johnson. Life = an endless river of time. Sit on the bank and everybody (living or dead) will float past--lovers, family, and friends. If Mary Gaitskill played Poohsticks with this detritus—impotent husbands, wastrel lovers, and damaged goods--maybe you’d get a neon noir improvisation as weighty as this staccato fantasia."
–Richard Peabody, editor, Gargoyle Magazine
"A study in iconography. A bride's bouquet. A cut up sheet. A bad dog's collar. Body parts on body parts. Intricate works of luggage and a bottle. Vallie Lynn Watson is a ruthless master of artifacts dug from the relationships of frighteningly raw and familiar images. Her words are gorgeous dirt. And you may never want to feel clean again."
--Rae Bryant, Author of "The Indefinite State of Imaginary Morals"
“A River So Long is a lean and dirty dance through the unhooked lives of its characters, young people with jobs and cares and relationships about which they seem to know next to nothing. Desperately disconnected, they nevertheless keep trying to find each other in the mess of contemporary American life. A splendid almost documentary rendering of the way things go these days.”
–Frederick Barthelme, author of "Waveland", "Chroma", and "Moon Deluxe"
"Watson’s peripatetic modular fiction packs a helluva punch. Here’s an Up in the Air for the nomadic hotel administration set as written by Denis Johnson. Life = an endless river of time. Sit on the bank and everybody (living or dead) will float past--lovers, family, and friends. If Mary Gaitskill played Poohsticks with this detritus—impotent husbands, wastrel lovers, and damaged goods--maybe you’d get a neon noir improvisation as weighty as this staccato fantasia."
–Richard Peabody, editor, Gargoyle Magazine
"A study in iconography. A bride's bouquet. A cut up sheet. A bad dog's collar. Body parts on body parts. Intricate works of luggage and a bottle. Vallie Lynn Watson is a ruthless master of artifacts dug from the relationships of frighteningly raw and familiar images. Her words are gorgeous dirt. And you may never want to feel clean again."
--Rae Bryant, Author of "The Indefinite State of Imaginary Morals"
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Vallie Lynn Watson's work has appeared widely in magazines such as PANK, Metazen, Moon Milk Review, Frigg, Ghoti, Nano Fiction, and elsewhere. She is an editor at Blip Magazine, formerly Mississippi Review. Watson received her doctorate at the Center for Writers, the University of Southern Mississippi, and teaches creative writing at Southeast Missouri State University. |
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| Paperback | 978-1935462606 | $17.95 |
| Category | Literature |
| Imprint | Luminis Books |
| Publication Date | 2012-06-15 |
| Publication Status | Forthcoming |
| Trim Size | 5.5 x 8 |
| Page Count | 180 |
