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Jonis Agee Wins!
Jonis Agee has won the Mark Twain Award for
2008, given annually by the Society for the
Study of Midwestern Literature for distinguished
contributions to Midwestern literature. The
award will be presented to Jonis at the
organization's banquet in East Lansing, MI on
May 9th as part of the organization's yearly
conference.
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The River Wife by Jonis Agee
by Phil Hey
Briar Cliff Review
April 17, 2008
This book is beautifully, masterfully written,
... Here, I propose, is where Jonis Agee most
earns the adjective "masterful." It is easy to
write pulpy historical romances, but it is
tremendously difficult to write so that every
detail has the ring and feel of truth, which is
what you’ll find here. I despise finding
technical or chronological errors in fiction;
they remind me I’m reading "only" fiction. One
fine sentence after another here, I’m convinced
— as I am with Mark Twain — that this
author knows the territory and won’t settle for
less. The river is right, the dirt and smoke are
right, the dense wetland brush is right, the
horses are right, the way the men use weapons is
right, the way the food is cooked is right ...
and the love is too. We put up with so much from
the people we truly love, and they with us. How
else could Annie put up with husband Jacques'
riverman companions, and his use of slaves to
build their house and "Jacques' landing," an inn
for boatmen? How else could Hedie put up with
Clement's mysterious late-night doings, and what
was it going to cost her in the end? I do not
mean to make <i>The River Wife</i> sound soapy
or bad-romantic, because this author is also
expert in avoiding sentimentalism ... while at
the same time she knows how to grip us page by
page, sentence by sentence, so that we want to
read on. Those limits are where all the
Ducharmes seem obliged to live, notwithstand-ing
the depth and decency of the women they marry
and take to their own limits — giving this
novel a classical unity and authority almost
lost in our time. <i>The River Wife</i> is not
only strongly recommended — it deserves a
place in the modern American canon.
―――――
"Emotions Run Swift in River Wife"
by Susan Kelly
USA Today
August 14, 2007
The setting of Jonis Agee's multigenerational
portrait of a family that definitely is haunted,
and most likely cursed, is a land drenched in
somnolent, seductive beauty and capable of
swift, fearsome violence. The same can be said
of many of the characters in The River Wife,
Agee's fifth novel, a sprawling tale of the
women allied — either through marriage, money or
birth — with fur trader and river pirate Jacques
Ducharme. Their lives are governed by passion,
their desires fueled by love, greed and
jealousy. ...
Agee's novel is fascinating. ... Agee is a
gifted storyteller. Life is difficult but never
dull in the house that Jacques built. [Click
here to read more.]
―――――
"Writing History: Jonis Agee Weaves
the Pioneer Past into a New Novel"
by Alden Mudge
Bookpage
August
2007
Jonis Agee didn’t intend for her 10th book,
The River Wife, to become her first
historical novel. Instead, she set out to tell a
more contemporary story of life in the
heartland, as she had done in her 1993 novel
Strange Angels, which was a New York
Times Notable Book, and in her highly
praised short
story collections
Acts of love on
Indigo Road
and Bend This
Heart. But sometimes a book has intentions
of its own. [Click here
to read more]
―――――
July 27, 2007. If you see a big red pickup rattling
down the highway from Milwaukee to Oxford,
Tennessee, it will be Jonis fresh from a series of
successful readings, book signings, and media
appearances across the Upper Midwest. She don't stop
for nothing, but she slowed down for us! See
"Readings" for more details.
―――――
"River Gothic" by Yvonne Zipp
Christian Science Monitor, July 24, 2007
Pirates, the legacy of slavery, natural history, romance, and Southern Gothic tradition combine in Jonis Agee's
atmospheric new novel. ... Fans of Southern Gothic will ... find The River Wife
a savory gumbo of melodrama and beautiful
writing.
[Click
here to read more]
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The River Wife by Jonis Agee
by Bernadette Murphy
Los Angeles Times
July 20, 2007
"Filled with high Southern
gothic flavor, the narrative is epic in scope,
covering a series of generations and bursting
with entwined layers of plot tension, sex,
violence and intrigue. . . . The writing
throughout is lush, as the author examines the
addictive allure of risk, along with the
blessings and curses of family ties, especially
those formed by marriage." [Click
here to read more.]
―――――
The River Wife is #12 on the Heartland
Independent Bestseller List for the week of July 22,
2007 (Based on reporting from the independent
booksellers of the Midwest Booksellers Association,
the Great Lakes Booksellers Association, and Book
Sense.)
―――――
"Southern Gothic: A ghost abandoned in the 19th
century finds her voice in the modern age" by
Jennifer Vanderbes
Washington Post Bookworld, July 22,
2007
In the late 19th century, as the United States
struggled to recover from the Civil War and the
spiritualist movement reached its peak, the idea
that a person could be haunted by the past moved
beyond metaphor. Writers such as Willa Cather,
Kate Chopin, Sarah Orne Jewett and Henry James
introduced the supernatural into their work. No
longer was the past conveyed in flashback and
dialogue alone; the past became an actual woman
in a blue or white dress, standing by a window,
whispering about how she'd been wronged. So it's
in keeping with the spirit of that time that in
Jonis Agee's The River Wife, set in
19th-century Missouri, a wronged woman haunts
the story. This engaging novel traces the loves
and losses of three generations of women. . . .
With Annie metaphorically and literally haunting
the novel, Agee seems to suggest that she cannot
be silenced. Literary ghosts are almost always
female, giving voice to those that the living
world has rendered powerless. Just as the ghost
in Toni Morrison's Beloved is an infant
and the narrator of Alice Sebold's The
Lovely Bones is a murdered girl,
Annie, although twice abandoned, is given
immortality. [Click
here to read more
(registration required)]
―――――
"Riverside
Love, Guilt and Loyalty" by Robin Vidimos
The Denver Post, July 21, 2007
Jonis Agee's
The River Wife sprawls across
generations of women and pirate men, enfolding love
and grief and complicity. Agee's narrative is as
deep as it is broad, peopled by finely drawn
characters of thought-provoking complexity. ...
Agee's prose is contemplative and lovely. As Hedie
comes "to hold hands with every dead person" who has
preceded her in her home, she is guided and brought
to understanding by their stories. She is haunted,
both literally and figuratively, by their presence
but these specters bring not fear, but wisdom,
acceptance and peace. [Click
here to read more]
―――――
Get thee behind me, boy wizard! The River Wife
sells out at Jonis's reading at Micawber's Bookstore
in St. Paul! Eager fans were seen "liberating"
copies from the reserve pile!
―――――
The River Wife by Jonis Agee
by Bernadette Murphy
Los Angeles Times
July 20, 2007
"Filled with high Southern
gothic flavor, the narrative is epic in scope,
covering a series of generations and bursting
with entwined layers of plot tension, sex,
violence and intrigue. . . . The writing
throughout is lush, as the author examines the
addictive allure of risk, along with the
blessings and curses of family ties, especially
those formed by marriage." [Click
here to read more.]
―――――
"Swift water ahead:
Agee's historical novel runs deep with emotion and
frontier detail"
by Seth Taylor
San Diego Union-Tribune
July 15, 2007
"A historical novel that rewires the rules with
a unique gothic elegance. ...
their struggles with love
and family are real, and their emotions are
fierce, thanks to Agee's careful attention. ...
[Agee's] Southern gothic prose is raw and
graceful, as she drenches her characters in
emotions too real to be diffused by a romantic
filter. Men and women fall in love quickly and
viscerally. When mothers lose their children,
they either withdraw and wither, or they lash
out with a murderous temper. Husbands and wives
who want to remain faithful are still fanned by
both desire and guilt. And women in love will
sacrifice what's necessary to push back the
wildness of the river." [Click
here to read more.]
―――――
Publishers Weekly
Review of The River Wife (Starred
Review)
Agee (Sweet Eyes;
Strange Angels) delivers an enthralling
family saga set in Missouri's boot heel, a place
so remote, "it's as if the whole state of
Missouri has been trying to shake it off for
years, like a vestigial tail."
Seventeen-year-old Hedie Rails arrives in 1930
as the pregnant bride of Clement Ducharme at his
family estate, but little does Hedie know that
she's carrying on a tradition: in 1811, young
Annie Lark is rescued from the Midwestern New
Madrid earthquake by French fur trapper Jacques
Ducharme and becomes the first "river wife."
Hedie discovers this—along with the dark side of
the Ducharme legacy—through old diaries she
finds at the family home. She also learns of the
other women involved with Jacques: Omah, the
freed slave girl who joins him in river piracy,
and Laura, his fortune-hunting second wife whose
daughter, Maddie, is Clement's mother As Hedie's
experiences become increasingly ominous (where
does Clement go at night, and why does he come
home beaten up? Are those footsteps she hears
upstairs?), parallels develop between her life
and those of past river wives. Lush historical
detail, a plot brimming with danger, love and
betrayal, and a magnificent cast (Jacques is
larger than life, and the wives are sassy,
sexed-up spitfires) will keep readers entranced.
(July)
―――――
Booklist Review
of The River Wife:
Agee’s
long-awaited fifth novel is more than simply a
work of fiction; rather, it’s an all-consuming
experience. From the moment Hedie Rails arrives
in Jacques’ Landing, Missouri, in 1930 as
Clement Ducharme’s young bride, readers are
swept into a tale of passion, deceit, and
misfortune steeped in the best southern gothic
tradition. “This isn’t a land to love, is it?”
remarks Hedie about the unforgiving, table-flat
Missouri Bootheel region, and she’s right. As
she reads the diaries of Annie Lark, crippled in
the New Madrid earthquake of 1811 and rescued by
French fur trapper Jacques Ducharme, Hedie
learns about her new husband’s disturbing family
legacy. The enigmatic Jacques amasses a fortune
as a Mississippi river pirate, and the quest for
his illicit wealth preoccupies the women of
later generations. These include Laura, an Irish
adventuress who becomes Jacques’ second wife;
Omah, the freed slave who’s his partner in
crime; and Maddie, Laura’s daughter. This
mesmerizing saga teeming with memorable
characters, sharp depictions of frontier life,
and lucid, beautifully wrought prose will haunt
readers long afterward. —Sarah Johnson
―――――
Speedway,
Jonis's movie, is finishing post-production,
directed by Oley Sassone and produced by Roger
Corman for New Horizons Picture Corporation.
―――――
The River Wife
chosen Best Book of the Month for July 2007,
Book-of-the-Month Club
―――――
The River Wife
chosen for Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Guild,
and Quality Paperback Book Club (Main Selection) |
