In elegant, sensual prose, Michael Crummey crafts a haunting tale set in Newfoundland at the turn of the nineteenth century. A richly imagined story about love, loss and the heartbreaking compromises -- both personal and political -- that undermine lives, "River Thieves "is a masterful debut novel. To be published in Canada and the United States, it joins a wave of classic literature from eastern Canada, including the works of Alistair MacLeod, Wayne Johnston and David Adams Richards, while resonating at times with the ...
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In elegant, sensual prose, Michael Crummey crafts a haunting tale set in Newfoundland at the turn of the nineteenth century. A richly imagined story about love, loss and the heartbreaking compromises -- both personal and political -- that undermine lives, "River Thieves "is a masterful debut novel. To be published in Canada and the United States, it joins a wave of classic literature from eastern Canada, including the works of Alistair MacLeod, Wayne Johnston and David Adams Richards, while resonating at times with the spirit of Charles Frazier's "Cold Mountain" and Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy. British naval officer David Buchan arrives on the Bay of Exploits in 1810 with orders to establish friendly contact with the elusive Beothuk, the aboriginal inhabitants known as "Red Indians" who have been driven almost to extinction. Aware that the success of his mission rests on the support of local white settlers, Buchan approaches the most influential among them, the Peytons, for assistance, and enters a shadowy world of allegiances and deep grudges. His closest ally, the young John Peyton Jr., maintains an uneasy balance between duty to his father -- a powerful landowner with a reputation as a ruthless persecutor of the Beothuk - and his troubled conscience. Cassie Jure, the self-reliant, educated and secretive woman who keeps the family house, walks a precarious line of her own between the unspoken but obvious hopes of the younger Peyton, her loyalty to John Senior, and a determination to maintain her independence. When Buchan's peace expedition goes horribly awry, the rift between father and son deepens. With a poetic eye and a gift for storytelling, Crummey vividly depictsthe stark Newfoundland backcountry. He shows the agonies of the men toiling towards the caribou slaughtering yards of the Beothuk; of coming upon the terrible beauty of Red Indian Lake, its frozen valley lit up by the sunset like "a cathedral lit with candles"; then retreating through rotten ice that slices at clothing and skin as they flee the disaster. He breathes life into the rich vernacular of the time and place, and with colourful detail brings us intimately into a world of haying and spruce beer, of seal meat and beaver pelts: a world where the first governor of Newfoundland to die in office is sent back to England preserved in "a large puncheon of rum." Years later, when the Peytons' second expedition to the Beothuks' winter camp leads to the kidnapping of an Indian woman and a murder, Buchan returns to investigate. As the officer attempts to uncover what really happened on Red Indian Lake, the delicate web of allegiance, obligation and debt that holds together the Peyton household and the community of settlers on the northeast shore slowly unravels. The interwoven histories of English and French, Mi'kmaq and Beothuk, are slowly unearthed, as the story culminates with a growing sense of loss -- the characters' private regrets echoed in the tragic loss of an entire people. An enthralling story of passion and suspense, "River Thieves" captures both the vast sweep of history and the intimate lives of a deeply emotional and complex cast of characters caught in its wake. Many historical events which provided inspiration for the novel took place around where Crummey grew up. There was a family of Peytons in the Bay of Exploits who were intimately involved in the fate of theBeothuk, John the Elder known as a 'great Indian killer' and his son, John the Younger, attempting to establish friendly contact. "What set of circumstances would account for this difference?" asked Crummey. "How would the two men relate to one another? What would the motivations be for their particular actions? As soon as a writer begins answering these sorts of questions in any definitive way, the writing becomes fiction." Though faithful to historical record in many details, he imagined ways in which the characters might participate more fully in each other's story.
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Add this copy of River Thieves to cart. $1.98, very good condition, Sold by The Maryland Book Bank rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from baltimore, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2001 by Doubleday Canada.
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Near Fine in very good + jacket. Tight binding. No chips, tears, creases or written inscriptions. Dust jacket is price-clipped. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. 335 pp.
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Fine Condition in Fine jacket. Signed by Author. Dust Jacket is in fine condition without tears or chips or other damage. Dust Jacket price-clipped. Dust Jack in mylar guard. Quantity Available: 1. Category: Literature & Literary; Canada. Signed by Author. ISBN: 0385658109. ISBN/EAN: 9780385658102. Pictures of this item not already displayed here available upon request. Inventory No: 24481.
I did not enjoy this book and found it difficult reading and not at all engaging. I could only read a few pages before I had to put it down. Had I not been reading it for book club I would not have finished it.
It purports to be about the demise of the Beothuk Indians. However, we learn very little about them as a people, and it could have been set almost anywhere ? about any aboriginal people ? or even imaginary ones. It did not ring true.
In fact the whole premise of book seemed unlikely to me. The Beothuk had not had a good relationship with the settlers from day one, and had gradually retreated further and further away from new pioneer settlements ? clearly wanting to be left alone. To send an expedition to seek them out in their remote territory and in the middle of the Newfoundland winter, could only give them the impression they were being hunted ? not sought for friendly reasons.
The characters were, for the most part, brutish and impossible to feel engaged with. It?s hard to decide who were the ?savages? in the story. The settlers were all quite ready to kill Beothuk people like animals, while the Beothuk pillaged and stole whenever they could, in retaliation. John Peyton senior is taciturn and unbending. Peyton junior ? though peaceable towards the Beothuk - seems a hopeless sort of person, and too much under his father?s thumb.
Richmond is a complete brute, Taylor only slightly less so. Reilly, who had been a river thief in London (and part of the play on words of the book title), seems to be the most peaceable of all the characters, other than Peyton junior. He just wants to live his life with his Micmac wife and kids.
Cassie was not a character to ?warm to? and the facts about her are deliberately misleading. You are led to believe she was having a relationship with Peyton senior ? but it is revealed late in the book that this has never been the case. In fact, she was sexually abused by her father. When she sought help from her mother, her mother was horrified and completely unsympathetic. In fact, she threw her down the stairs which resulted in a permanent injury to Cassie's leg - though again, this seems like a needless detail that has little bearing on anything in the story.
In light of her father?s abuse, her affair with Buchan seemed unlikely. Why would she suddenly have sex with a man she hardly knew ? but who she knew was married ? and someone who would be gone out of her life very quickly. Moreover, she kept so much to herself that it seemed out of character that she would write in his diary that she had fallen pregnant ? and ended the pregnancy. It seemed like too convenient a twist in the plot - to prevent Buchan from bringing charges against any of the settlers. And why was he so ready to do so? He was the one who had influenced them to go into Beothuk territory in the first place.
There are many misleading twists and turns about who killed the two Beothuk men ? Mary?s husband and brother. You never find out what happened to her child. Richmond killed her husband ? because he was attacking John senior. But it was John senior who shot the second Beothuk ? Mary?s brother ? and wounded him. Reilly finally killed him ? more to put him out of his pain than because he really wanted to.
Mary was a pathetic character. Why did she not want to return to her people? Was it because her husband and brother were both dead and she would have no protection, or was it because she knew she had an illness that could spread among her people?
You get the impression that this took place over a couple of years. In fact it was more than twenty years. Cassie is 18 when we first meet her ? and in her 40s by the end of the story. All in all I found this a dreary book.
