'Til Niagara Falls

by Katerie Morin

Overview

1901. When a train robbery destroy's Annie's plans for a quiet life, she reinvents herself as a redheaded daredevil and heads to Niagara Falls, determined to be the first person to survive going over it in a barrel - or to die trying. 

But when Annie arrives in Niagara, she unwittingly walks into a turf war between two crime bosses vying to control the illegal gambling, extortion and prostitution that hum belows Niagara's honeymoon veneer. As Annie comes to realize that water is not the only danger in Niagara, her relationship with a riverman begins to threaten her plan to fall.

Based on the trust story of Annie Edson Taylor, 'Til Niagara Falls is told from the competing points of view of Annie, her allies and enemies.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940156523337
Publisher:	Po84 Productions
Publication date:	05/22/2019
Sold by:	Draft2Digital
Format:	eBook
File size:	374 KB

Editorial Reviews

2019-05-20
Based on historical events, this novel tells the story of Annie Edson Taylor, who, in 1901, became the first person to survive going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Schoolteacher Annie Edson Taylor, a widow, is traveling back East when robbers board her train and steal her life's savings. Desperate, Annie listens when carnies in her boardinghouse suggest she perform "a stunt no one has ever survived" and make money telling her story, perhaps at the upcoming Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. The location suggests Niagara Falls, so Annie uses her mathematical and engineering know-how to calculate the best odds for going over. She commissions a barrel with the right characteristics, gets a talent agent to represent her, and dyes her graying hair daredevil red. But it's not that simple, as Annie discovers when she gets to Niagara and becomes a pawn of shady businessmen hoping to cash in on her stunt, offering "protection" in return. Annie makes a deal with Mr. Stilwell, an experienced riverman, who shows her how to avoid the whirlpool and takes her on a tour. They share an attraction to each other and the falls. But after her famous stunt, Annie must leave Niagara to make a living. Will he follow when the falls "are his oxygen and without them he will smother"? In her debut novel, playwright Morin ably portrays the cruelty that's allied with hucksterism, from unfortunate animals sent over the falls to onlookers' hopes of observing tragedy. Annie's careful preparations for her stunt—designing the barrel, scouting the location—make engrossing reading. Several first-person, present-tense points of view, including those of a tough bodyguard and a ghost, contribute to the story's immediacy and drama, but the voices are very similar and sometimes implausibly lyrical. "The deaths of the sad and the foolish keep the local tramps in hard liquor and old flowers," muses Stilwell, so rough around the edges that he lives in a cave.

Looks beneath a famous stunt's sensationalism to discover its roots in tragedy and need.

Kirkus Reviews