{"id":6526,"date":"2019-05-06T11:25:58","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T15:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=6526"},"modified":"2019-05-06T11:25:58","modified_gmt":"2019-05-06T15:25:58","slug":"book-review-i-am-the-river-by-t-e-grau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-i-am-the-river-by-t-e-grau\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: I Am the River by T.E. Grau"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

I Am the River\u00a0<\/em>by T.E. Grau<\/p>\n

Lethe Press, 2018<\/p>\n

ISBN: 978-1-59021-445-9<\/p>\n

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If there are such things as literary horror novels\u2019 I Am the River<\/em> would be the poster child.\u00a0 This is the equivalent of a 70\u2019s era acid trip washed down with a fistful of amphetamines.\u00a0 It\u2019s a dizzying trip through the reality (and unreality)\u00a0 of one man\u2019s mind and actions, as he struggles to deal with his shattered life, post-Vietnam.\u00a0 Written with exceptional skill, I Am the River<\/em> is a novel the reader won\u2019t want to miss.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s ending.\u00a0 The story runs two threads concurrently throughout the book, and the chapters are split along the threads.\u00a0 One thread is written in the first person from Broussard\u2019s point of view, and shows him trying to make sense of his reality in the seamy underbelly of Thailand.\u00a0\u00a0 He is clearly unbalanced and has severe mental problems, but he can\u2019t remember what<\/em> happened to him in the war that left him so unstable.\u00a0 The author\u2019s 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\u2019s head.\u00a0 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.\u00a0The other thread is written in the third person, and tells Broussard\u2019s story during the war.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It then builds towards the objective itself, and how it is supposed to end the war.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 I Am the River\u00a0<\/em>is\u00a0very 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.\u00a0 Other characters help to lend more to the overall discussion in this section.\u00a0 The reader will get hooked quickly here, as you\u2019ll want to know more about the mission and the nefarious idea behind it.<\/p>\n

The author wisely does not give away the reasons behind either plot thread at the beginning.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It also leaves a setting tailor-made for another book in the story of Israel Broussard, as most readers will be clamoring for more.<\/p>\n

As good as everything concerning the plot is, it\u2019s Grau\u2019s skill as a writer that makes this book so impressive.\u00a0 His prose is fluid and extremely polished, and shows a skill that many authors can only hope to achieve.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to believe this is his first novel, as he writes like a seasoned veteran.\u00a0 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\u2019s impressive to behold.\u00a0 The bottom line is, you want to read this one.\u00a0 Highly recommended.<\/p>\n

Contains: violence, mild gore.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Editor’s note:\u00a0I Am the River\u00a0<\/strong>is a nominee on the final ballot for the 2018 Bram Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I Am the River\u00a0by 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\u2019 I Am the River would be the poster child.\u00a0 This is the equivalent of a 70\u2019s era acid trip washed down with a fistful of amphetamines.\u00a0 It\u2019s a dizzying<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2474,83,2737,3618,3667,3812],"class_list":["post-6526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-book-review","tag-horror-fiction","tag-psychological-horror","tag-ptsd","tag-stoker-awards-2018","tag-vietnam-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6526"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6539,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6526\/revisions\/6539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}