Follow the River Home

Author: Corran Harrington

Publisher: Arbor Farm Press

Release Date: April 14, 2016

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

Great use of prose throughout the book. Definitely a little unorthodox on the writing, but interesting all the same.

I received a complimentary copy of this book through TLC book tours for an honest and fair review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Daniel Arroyo questions many things throughout his life. Was the death of his baby sister his fault?  Is the PTSD he suffers from Vietnam real or a figment of his imagination?  Did he follow the correct course of his life by marrying his high school sweetheart Laura?  The list goes on and on.  One thing that Daniel does not question is his work with the Rio Grande River.  He has always been close to the river.  Growing up he lived in front of an irrigation ditch that branched off the river.  Now he works taking river samples and analyzing the river.  As he questions much of his life, he finds his way back home working along the Rio Grande.

There is a lot that is going on in this book and it is a little difficult to follow at times. The first part of the book is focused on the character of Daniel Arroyo and his struggles with life beginning with the death of his sister Carmen, followed by PTSD from Vietnam, and his now struggles with possibly becoming gay.  It jumps back and forth between past and present quite a bit, but this part is pretty easy to follow along for the most part.  At the end of the part, you get a large part of the backstory to the sister’s death, which I was hoping to get to at the beginning of each chapter.

Then comes part two. This part covers major events and milestones that occur in part one, but from a different perspective or viewpoint.  Part of this is from supporting characters (some you didn’t know existed until you read it). Some of it is even from furniture.  Actually, the furniture part was very interesting because it began when the furniture was created before Daniel’s family even acquired it.  As I said earlier, really unorthodox, but interesting.

The author really understood the use of literary prose the make the story flow. The descriptions provided throughout the book were amazingly detailed and managed to keep the story light and not turn it away.  Tension was applied where it was needed and I really enjoyed getting some of the “rest of the story” from the events that happened in part one that more or less left the reader hanging.

There is some frequent strong foul language as well as the insinuation of male homosexual activity. This book is recommended for mature audiences.