The River Queen: A Memoir

by Mary Morris

Overview

This story of a middle-aged woman's odyssey down the Mississippi River is a funny, beautifully written, and poignant tale of a journey that transforms a life


In fall 2005 acclaimed travel writer Mary Morris set off down the Mississippi in a battered old houseboat called the River Queen, with two river rats named Tom and Jerry—and a rat terrier, named Samantha Jean, who hated her. It was a time of emotional turmoil for Morris. Her father had just died; her daughter was leaving home; life was changing all around her. It was then she decided to return to the Midwest where she was from, to the river she remembered, where her father had played jazz piano in tiny towns.

Morris describes living like a pirate and surviving a tornado. Because of Katrina, oil prices, and drought, the river was often empty—a ghost river—and Morris experienced it as Joliet and Marquette had four hundred years earlier. As she learned to pilot her beloved River Queen without running aground and made peace with Samantha Jean, Morris got her groove back, reconnecting to her past. More important, she came away with her best book, a bittersweet travel tale told in the very real voice of a smart, sad, funny, gutsy, and absolutely appealing woman.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466843608
Publisher:	Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	05/03/2013
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	344,304
File size:	355 KB

About the Author

Mary Morris is the author of three other travel memoirs, each one representing a different moment in her life: Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone (0-312-19941-4), Wall to Wall, and Angels and Aliens. She is also the author of six novels and three collections of short stories. When she is not traveling and writing, Morris is on the faculty of Sarah Lawrence College where she teaches creative writing. The recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.

Mary Morris is the author of twelve books (including Acts of God, The Night Sky, and House Arrest), three collections of short stories, including The Lifeguard, and three travel memoirs, including Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone and Angels&Aliens: A Journey West (all available from Picador). Her numerous short stories and travel essays have appeared in The Paris Review, The New York Times, and Vogue. The recipient of the Rome Prize, Morris teaches writing at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.

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

Reading Group Guide

About this Guide

The following author biography and list of questions about The River Queen are intended as resources to aid individual readers and book groups who would like to learn more about the author and this book. We hope that this guide will provide you a starting place for discussion, and suggest a variety of perspectives from which you might approach The River Queen.

Editorial Reviews

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.

Publishers Weekly

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.

Library Journal

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.

Kirkus Reviews

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

From the Publisher