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Books to Watch!
A Novel
by Wally Lamb
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of two Oprah Book Club Picks—She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True—Wally Lamb comes the propulsive story of a young father who, after an unbearable tragedy, reckons with the possibility of atonement for the unforgivable.
Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that's before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness and elemental kinship with a prison librarian who sees his light and some of his fellow offenders, including a tender-hearted cellmate and a troubled teen desperate for a role model. Buoyed by them and by his mother's enduring faith in him, Corby begins to transcend the boundaries of his confinement, sustained by his hope that mercy and reconciliation might still be possible. Can his crimes ever be forgiven by those he loves?
"Lamb sheds light on the inhumanity and cruelty of the American prison system, while also offering glimmers of hope and friendship… There are no simple resolutions in this gripping drama, and Lamb offers plenty to ponder about guilt, innocence, rehabilitation, and forgiveness." —Booklist
"[A] heart-wrenching story of redemption… Lamb lays bare the vagaries of his protagonist's life in accessible prose and concludes on a bittersweet note. This will please the author's fans." —Publishers Weekly
"Riveting… Lamb expertly shows [Corby's] arduous, bumpy progression… a gripping […] story of grief, guilt, and healing." —Kirkus Reviews
"As usual, Wally Lamb gripped me with his perceptive, page-turning novel, The River Is Waiting, a story that illuminates how the traumas of mass incarceration and addiction stigma spare no one. Lamb delivers what's most needed in these turbulent times—an absolute empathy bomb." —Beth Macy, author of Dopesick and Raising Lazarus
"Time and time again, the amazing Wally Lamb's imperfect people break our hearts and help us understand the unfathomable depths of guilt and grief as we look for light in the world." —Alice Hoffman, New York Times bestselling author of The Practical Magic series
"The River is Waiting is an ambitious, affecting novel that's not afraid to look directly at human suffering, and to map out the pain we inflict on others, and on ourselves. With an unflinching eye and an unsentimental compassion for his characters, Wally Lamb finds glimmers of hope and healing and decency in the darkest places." —Tom Perrotta, New York Times bestselling author of The Leftovers and Little Children
This information about The River Is Waiting was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Wally Lamb is the author of the New York Times and national bestseller The Hour I First Believed, as well as the novels She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, both #1 New York Times bestsellers and Oprah's Book Club selections. His first novel She's Come Undone
received rave reviews when it was published in 1992. The book was a finalist for the Los
Angeles Times Book Awards' Art Seidenbaum Prize for First Fiction and was named as one
of the most notable books of the year by numerous publications, including The New York
Times Book Review and People magazine. We Are Water will be published in October 2013.
A graduate of the Vermont College MFA writing program, Lamb is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Connecticut's English ...
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