A Stretch on the River

A Mississippi river yarn told by novelist and playwright, Richard Bissell. Although Harvard educated, Bissell worked on the Mississippi most of his life and from the very first page, A Stretch on the River (1950) sweeps the reader along much like the river that runs through it – burbling and chortling, making us laugh, and creating wonder.
The narrator joins the crew of a Mississippi towboat at the beginning of WW II having been refused by the Navy (and having no use for the army) and is so...