Red Rain
Following his acclaimed debut, Waterborne, Bruce Murkoff gives us another American panorama with a Civil War novel unlike any other.\ Born near Rondout, New York, to a family steeped in wars both before and after independence, Will Harp returns home in 1864 for the first time in a decade, disconsolate over the campaigns being waged against Indians in the West even as the nation is busy tearing itself apart. His father is now buried in the Harp graveyard, surrounded by two preceding...
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Following his acclaimed debut, Waterborne, Bruce Murkoff gives us another American panorama with a Civil War novel unlike any other.Born near Rondout, New York, to a family steeped in wars both before and after independence, Will Harp returns home in 1864 for the first time in a decade, disconsolate over the campaigns being waged against Indians in the West even as the nation is busy tearing itself apart. His father is now buried in the Harp graveyard, surrounded by two preceding generations, and much else, too, has changed.For Mickey Blessing, though, these are heady times. Serving the darker needs of a prosperous businessman, Harry Grieves, he commands fear and respect as few Irish immigrants have managed to do in a society still hostile to their presence. The man he’d replaced had enlisted and is now missing in the horrors of Cold Harbor, leaving Mickey’s sister, Jane, fearing the worst about her fiancé’s survival.Coley Hinds, orphaned as a child, is fending for himself and fast growing savvy as the town around him bustles with trade and tragedy. In his stable-basement lodgings, he reads Western serials that he hopes will describe his future, but then falls under the sway of Mickey, who recognizes in him the powerless waif he once had been himself.All of these lives and more are intertwined when the bones of a mastodon surface on a neighboring farm that Will quickly purchases, pursuing a fervent boyhood interest. He finds an eager assistant in Coley, who suddenly needs refuge from budding criminality when Mickey suffers a hideous loss and develops an unhealthy obsession with a baby found on Jug Hill, where free black people have lived for generations. And before long, every fate is uncertain as calamity threatens to envelop them all.Red Rain is masterful in both its specifics—Coley’s pet squirrel, the erotic tableaux Will’s photographer friend contrives, the bakery where Jane finds comfort as well as income—and its broad historical sweep, which reaches from the settling of the Hudson River Valley to the bloodshed now ravaging the South and the West. Its characterizations are impeccable, whether of Grieves’s dream of a grand hotel or Mickey’s love of water, with not one gripping love story but several. And its plotting is relentless, weaving stories from various times and places that inevitably converge, right here in Rondout, with heart-stopping intensity. Engrossing and revelatory, Red Rain shows an extraordinarily talented writer expanding his already great range, and at the very top of his form.The Washington Post - Peter BehrensBruce Murkoff's Red Rain is a rich, thick stew of a historical novel, a powerfully imagined and thoroughly believable vision of America in its nadir summer of 1864.
\ Publishers WeeklyMurkoff's distinctive second novel (after the much acclaimed Waterborne) spans five months in 1864 as Dr. William Harp returns to his Hudson Valley hometown after 10 years on a California expedition. With the nation at war and many locals in various states of decline, the doctor doesn't have much idle time. Among the lives that will intersect are mischievous, hard-drinking 13-year-old Coley Hinds, who is eternally torn between right and wrong; retired shipping captain Mickey Blessing; and Mickey's sister, Jane, who pines for her MIA soldier husband, Frank. A narrative lynchpin comes in the discovery of a mastodon skeleton, leading Will to purchase the land where it's found and to scavenge for other remains. Meanwhile, the hushed death of a local woman, violence involving Mickey and a local troublemaker, and jealousy of Will's notoriety for the skeleton he's begun reconstructing on his land all make for a heady denouement. The townsfolks' elaborately described machinations have a tendency to move the narrative in stops and starts, but that's about the only flaw in this dense, deliberate, and lush saga that will surely appeal to readers who appreciate brawny historicals. (July)\ \ \ \ \ Peter BehrensBruce Murkoff's Red Rain is a rich, thick stew of a historical novel, a powerfully imagined and thoroughly believable vision of America in its nadir summer of 1864.\ —The Washington Post\ \ \ Library JournalFollowing up his acclaimed first novel (Waterborne), Murkoff again offers a work of historical fiction, this one taking place in the Hudson River port town of Rondout, NY, during 1864. While far removed from the Civil War battlefields, the townsfolk nevertheless remain affected by the war, as many of the men have gone to fight. Physician Will Harp, now returning his family farm after many years in the West, where he rode with the cavalry, and Jane Blessing, a woman who waits in the home of her betrothed, Frank Quinn, after he enlists, reflect most emphatically the emotional pain that war inflicts. Other characters, while not outwardly involved in the war itself, use physical violence in their day-to-day life to win their way in conflicts. This is not to say that this story depicts only bloodshed, as there are also instances of artistic accomplishment, scientific discovery, and genuine affection that make many of the characters people the reader can care about. VERDICT An in-depth examination of life in a gritty river town during wartime in an era of both uncertainty and progress that also provides an assortment of fascinating characters, this work is to be savored. Well worth considering, especially where historical fiction is popular.—Maureen Neville, Trenton P.L., NJ\ \
