DEEP RIVER

Bronson Pinchot delivers this sprawling, incandescent historical novel. His performance gives the mostly immigrant Finns' lives veracity and dignity. The listener encounters the stresses, hardships, and majesty of these struggling new arrivals who live in Washington state near a river that has a strong presence in their lives. Pinchot's twin gifts--an extraordinary ear for language and an actor's nuanced delivery--enliven the prose. The novelist's careful study of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century life amid the rugged terrain reveals the hard and dangerous work of loggers and the challenges of farmers. Here is the America of the Wobblies, the Espionage Act, of long labor for little pay. Yet these taciturn people dance, romance and capture the heart of the listener. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2019]