I Am the River by T.E. Grau

Lethe Press, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-59021-445-9

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

If there are such things as literary horror novels’ I Am the River would be the poster child.  This is the equivalent of a 70’s era acid trip washed down with a fistful of amphetamines.  It’s a dizzying trip through the reality (and unreality)  of one man’s mind and actions, as he struggles to deal with his shattered life, post-Vietnam.  Written with exceptional skill, I Am the River is a novel the reader won’t want to miss.

The story centers around Israel Broussard, an American GI who suffers with a severe case of PTSD, as he drifts though life in the slums of Bangkok, five years after the war’s ending.  The story runs two threads concurrently throughout the book, and the chapters are split along the threads.  One thread is written in the first person from Broussard’s point of view, and shows him trying to make sense of his reality in the seamy underbelly of Thailand.   He is clearly unbalanced and has severe mental problems, but he can’t remember what happened to him in the war that left him so unstable.  The author’s skill is on full display here, as he moves between using full sentences/paragraphs, to using short, jagged sentences when he describes the thoughts running through Broussard’s head.  It does an excellent job of making the reader feel the madness Broussard is suffering from, as it comes at you in quick snippets, much like the thoughts in his head. The other thread is written in the third person, and tells Broussard’s story during the war.  He was a disgraced GI who was hand-selected for an off-the-books mission, and he had no idea why he was picked, or what the mission was.  It then builds towards the objective itself, and how it is supposed to end the war.

Some of the highlights include the expositions by some of the characters concerning what winning a war actually entails, and how to “win” it without firing a shot.  I Am the River is very well thought out: it is written so well that you might find yourself questioning your own ideas about what a war is, and what winning actually means.  Other characters help to lend more to the overall discussion in this section.  The reader will get hooked quickly here, as you’ll want to know more about the mission and the nefarious idea behind it.

The author wisely does not give away the reasons behind either plot thread at the beginning.  It is like reading two stories at once: both build in excitement at roughly the same level, and each hits its climax within a chapter of the other at the end.  Both threads tie their plots together for the last chapter, and the reader gets a beautiful, open, ending that does not completely resolve the story, but does leave a note of hope for the future.  It also leaves a setting tailor-made for another book in the story of Israel Broussard, as most readers will be clamoring for more.

As good as everything concerning the plot is, it’s Grau’s skill as a writer that makes this book so impressive.  His prose is fluid and extremely polished, and shows a skill that many authors can only hope to achieve.  It’s hard to believe this is his first novel, as he writes like a seasoned veteran.  As an example: describing a helicopter landing, he writes, “the choppers shed altitude fast, handing it off to the slow rising sun as an even trade with the break of dawn over the eastern mountain range.” The whole book is written with this type of skill, and it’s impressive to behold.  The bottom line is, you want to read this one.  Highly recommended.

Contains: violence, mild gore.

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Editor’s note: I Am the River is a nominee on the final ballot for the 2018 Bram Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel.