The River Queen

( 4 )

Overview

In the fall of 2005 acclaimed writer Mary Morris set off down the Mississippi River in a battered old houseboat called The River Queen, with two river rats named Tom and Jerry and an ailing, irascible rat terrier named Samantha Jean. Her father had just died. Her daughter had gone off to college. Lost and uncertain, Morris returned to the river of her youth, to the waterside towns where her father had once lived. In this poignant and often humorous memoir, Morris reclaims the world of her childhood as she gets a ...

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The River Queen

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Overview

In the fall of 2005 acclaimed writer Mary Morris set off down the Mississippi River in a battered old houseboat called The River Queen, with two river rats named Tom and Jerry and an ailing, irascible rat terrier named Samantha Jean. Her father had just died. Her daughter had gone off to college. Lost and uncertain, Morris returned to the river of her youth, to the waterside towns where her father had once lived. In this poignant and often humorous memoir, Morris reclaims the world of her childhood as she gets a bearing on her future. She describes traveling down stream through the Midwest, living like a pirate as she survives a tornado and infestation of mayflies, bivouacs on beaches, and ties up to paddleboats in the dark of night. As she learns to pilot the River Queen through these fabled waters, Morris delivers a memoir that “deserves to be both a best-seller and a classic” (The Courier-Journal).

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Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher
"The River Queen is my new favorite book; I wish I'd been the one to write something so flawless, so honest, and so resonant."—Jodi Picoult, author of My Sister's Keeper

"A journey or quest is one of the oldest literary forms, and The River Queen is a perfect example of why this genre is so satisfying. . . . Morris's trip—and her tale—are something that everyone could envy."—Los Angeles Times

"Fascinating . . . This bittersweet travel tale is told in the very real voice of a smart, sad, gutsy, and absolutely appealing woman whose odyssey transformed her life in ways she never imagined."—The Tucson Citizen

"Morris is a delightfully curious traveler. . . . She has an excellent capacity to be at once acerbic and impressed, and readers settle into Morris's story as if she is an old friend."—Booklist

"Never sentimental or maudlin, this is a realistic memoir of a strong woman on both a physical and an emotional journey at midlife."—Library Journal

"I have read The River Queen with great pleasure, because it is such an American adventure, which Mary Morris handles with verve—the Mississippi, the unexpected storms and odd encounters, but most of all how the adventure and the lark becomes a passage into memory, childhood, and the past."—Paul Theroux

Publishers Weekly

In this chronicle of a self-imposed journey down the Upper Mississippi River, Morris (Nothing to Declare) attempts to figure out her future and enjoy herself. After her daughter leaves for college and her father dies, Morris opts to jump aboard a houseboat, hoping the quest will help her navigate life's troughs. It's a great idea, but the voyage is tough on the reader. Morris is a touchy trekker, making her less than a great travel companion. Until the last third of the book, she's distressed by just about everything having to do with the venture. The cramped quarters on the houseboat, the food, the once booming river towns now mostly boarded up and lonely, and the sometimes tedious pace all cause her consternation. "I hate pizza. I hate all that doughy stuff. I want a meal, shower, amenities," sums up her attitude for most of the trip. Morris sprinkles the narrative with tantalizing bits of fact and opinion regarding both the human and natural environments she encounters. This is where the book sparkles. But often she barely skims the surface, leaving the reader thirsty for more. Sadly, by the time Morris regains her spirit and begins to enjoy the adventure, readers may have jumped ship. (Apr.)

Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, travel writer and memoirist Morris (Nothing To Declare) set out on a decrepit houseboat with two river guides named Tom and Jerry. As her life was changing rapidly-her father had just died at age 103, and her daughter was leaving for her first year of college-Morris decided to travel, seeking comfort and adventure by returning to her family home, the Midwest's river country. The journey down the Mississippi took her boat through many unfamiliar places, but Morris was most interested in the towns that were significant to her father's long life. She writes of him as a difficult, often abusive, and secretive man and tries to reconcile their troubled relationship, weaving a memoir of her family into a travelog recounting fascinating places and people, including a Katrina survivor, a sorcerer, and denizens of many small ports. Never sentimental or maudlin, this is a realistic memoir of a strong woman on both a physical and an emotional journey at midlife. Recommended for public libraries and academic libraries with travel collections.-Lisa N. Johnston, Sweet Briar Coll. Lib., VA Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Rambling author Morris (Revenge, 2004, etc.) hires a houseboat and captain to take her down the Mississippi on the trail of Mark Twain and the father she missed. Restless in middle age, with a newly empty Brooklyn nest (daughter Kate had recently left for college), Morris decided it was time to shake her anxiety and prescription drugs for a travel adventure she could make into a new book. She located the River Queen, a sturdy, grime-ridden boat dry-docked near La Crosse, Wisc., and struck a deal with its hard-of-hearing captain, Jerry. Together with the ship's mechanic Tom and his beloved little black dog (who snarled and lunged at Morris), they eventually got it together and took off downstream two weeks after Hurricane Katrina. It was a poignant journey for Morris, who grew up in Chicago, went East for college in the mid-1960s and never looked back. Her father, who died in 2005 at the age of 102, used to sell ladies' garments at Klein's Department Store in Hannibal, Mo., Mark Twain's legendary hometown. Dad later moved to Illinois and got rich creating the first Midwestern malls, but Morris was raised on his river tales. The trip itself was fairly uneventful, though she was sad to see once-great river towns like Dubuque, Muscatine and Hannibal hollowed by suburban malls. With patient Jerry's help, Morris learned to steer, navigated the river's system of locks and dams, endured storms, adjusted to crawling river time and mastered tying a seaman's knot. Her ineptitude is endearing, as is her need for showers and order on board. Along the way, she offers history about the muddy, meandering river and her angry, aphorism-spouting, toupee-wearing father. Serenely calibrated, pleasant andheartfelt.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780312427894
  • Publisher: Picador
  • Publication date: 5/27/2008
  • Edition description: First Edition
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 288
  • Sales rank: 929,427
  • Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.10 (h) x 1.40 (d)

Meet the Author

MARY MORRIS is the author of the travel memoirs Nothing to Declare, Wall to Wall, and Angels and Aliens, along with six novels and three collections of short stories. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.

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Table of Contents


Downstream     1
Storm     28
Islands     38
Ghost River     65
Mist     87
Current     107
Around the Bend     129
Mayflies     151
Hannibal     166
Hurricane     193
Confluence     222
Upstream     245
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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 4 )
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Sort by: Showing all of 2 Customer Reviews
  • Anonymous

    Posted July 26, 2008

    My River, Too

    In her memoir, The River Queen, Mary Morris takes her readers on a unique journey down the mighty Mississippi as she makes a private journey of her own¿coming to terms with her father¿s passing. Her naïveté is refreshing, and she admits early in the book, ¿I don¿t have the river in my head, yet.¿ Unlike the writer¿s friend, who never thought about the river despite growing up in St. Louis, I grew up twenty miles southeast of St. Louis, and the river has been a large presence in my life. Like many Midwesterners, I have traveled the river and visited some of the places Morris describes. By the book¿s end, Morris has changed. She has learned things about her father¿s life and about herself, contentment evident as she pilots the last leg of her journey with the river firmly fixed in her head. I agree with T.S. Eliot, ¿The sea is around us, but the river is in us.¿ Reading Morris¿s memoir will put a little of the river in every reader.

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  • Posted December 9, 2008

    more from this reviewer

    So-so

    In Brooklyn, travel author Mary Morris was mourning the death of her father as her daughter was going off to college when she decided the walls of her empty nest abode was increasing her anxiety caused by these recent reminders of her mortality. The travelogue writer needed something different to occupy her middle age thoughts as pictures from the 1920s of her father makes her feel she must do something to honor his memory and to get her out of the doldrums. She hires a Mississippi River houseboat the River Queen owned by Captain Jerry to take her down the great river starting in Wisconsin with plans to reach Hannibal, Missouri home of Twain and her dad, who told her and her brother many river tales.------------- The memoir is at its best when Ms. Morris observes the ¿mallization¿ of the river towns that make places like Dubuque different than what she describes in her dad¿s vivid images and metaphors. Also fun is when Jerry teaches her how to steer their vessel though she is not a grade A student. When Ms. Morris goes introspective the travelogue turns muddier than the Mighty Mississippi especially when she rages about her dislikes. Still this is a fine memoir that is entertaining when Ms. Morris brings to life the changing upper river basin especially in the latter half of the journey as if the river eventually cleansed the visitor¿s hurting soul.------------ Harriet Klausner

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