Books with title Lostman's River

Critically-acclaimed novelist and naturalist Peter Matthiessen deftly weaves together the fortunes and tragedies of Florida Everglades folk in this foreboding thriller. Haunted by the legacy of his father's violent reputation and brutal death, historian Lucius Watson seeks to understand the man behind the legend. In 1910, an enraged mob of neighbors gunned down murder suspect E.J. Watson - each claiming it was self-defense. Over four decades later, his son Lucius returns to Lost Man's River to discover the truth behind that horrible day. Was his father really a cold-blooded murderer, feared by all? Or was he a man of progress and vision, killed by those who envied him? Alternately threatened and shunned, Lucius relentlessly digs for answers, even while he fears the truth. In this dazzling sequel to Killing Mr. Watson, Peter Matthiessen presents the story of a family riddled with scandal through colorful recollections of renegades and their descendants. Veteran narrator George Guidall brings the rich oral history dramatically to life.

Danger Stalks the SwamplandLostman's River is home to Tyler MacCauley and his family, just as it is to thousands of birds and other wildlife that share Nature's piece of the Earth.But greed and profit have brought great danger into the swampland. And when Tyler and his family dare to trust a stranger, they find out, to their horror, that they have jeopardized not only the land and all who live there, but their own future as well.

Danger Stalks the SwamplandLostman's River is home to Tyler MacCauley and his family, just as it is to thousands of birds and other wildlife that share Nature's piece of the Earth.But greed and profit have brought great danger into the swampland. And when Tyler and his family dare to trust a stranger, they find out, to their horror, that they have jeopardized not only the land and all who live there, but their own future as well.

Peter Matthiessen is one of the few American writers ever nominated for the National Book Award for both fiction and nonfiction. When his novel Killing Mister Watson was published in 1990, the reviews were extraordinary. It was heralded as "a marvel of invention . . . a virtuoso performance" (The New York Times Book Review) and a "novel [that] stands with the best that our nation has produced as literature" (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now Peter Matthiessen brings us the second novel in his Watson trilogy, a project that has been nearly twenty years in the writing. A story of epic scope and ambition, Lost Man's River confronts the primal relationship between a dangerous father and his desperate sons and the ways in which his death has shaped their lives. Lucius Watson is obsessed with learning the truth about his father. Who was E. J. Watson? Was he a devoted family man, an inspired farmer, a man of progress and vision? Or was he a cold-blooded murderer and amoral opportunist? Were his neighbors driven to kill him out of fear? Or was it envy? And if Watson was a killer, should the neighbors fear the obsessed Lucius when he returns to live among them and ask questions? The characters in this tale are men and women molded by the harsh elements of the Florida Everglades--an isolated breed, descendants of renegades and pioneers, who have only their grit, instinct, and tradition to wield against the obliterating forces of twentieth-century progress: Speck Daniels, moonshiner and alligator poacher turned gunrunner; Sally Brown, who struggles to escape the racism and shame of her local family; R. B. Collins, known as Chicken, crippled by drink and rage, who is the custodian of Watson secrets; Watson Dyer, the unacknowledged namesake with designs on the remote Watson homestead hidden in the wild rivers; and Henry Short, a black man and unwilling member of the group of armed island men who awaited E. J. Watson in the silent twilight. Only a storyteller of Peter Matthiessen's dazzling artistry could capture the beauty and strangeness of life on this lawless frontier while probing deeply into its underlying tragedy: the brutal destruction of the land in the name of progress, and the racism that infects the heart of New World history.

One morning Tyler MacCauley's father wakes up next to a dead man, gathers his family, and flees New York. For the next five and a half years, the MacCauleys see few people who don't call the Florida swamp home. Then, in 1906, within days of each other, two strangers show up at the MacCauley settlement on Lostman's River. The first offers Tyler's father a job killing birds for their plumes and alligators for their hides, and is turned away. The second asks thirteen-year-old Ty to be his guide through the area, on what he calls a scientific expedition. For three dollars a day, enough to ease his family's poverty, Ty agrees to accompany the "strange little man." The expedition sets in motion a series of events that make Ty question his own values, wonder about degrees of treachery, and worry about the future of the place he has grown to love. And it forces the MacCauleys to confront their greatest fear...

Danger Stalks the SwamplandLostman's River is home to Tyler MacCauley and his family, just as it is to thousands of birds and other wildlife that share Nature's piece of the Earth.But greed and profit have brought great danger into the swampland. And when Tyler and his family dare to trust a stranger, they find out, to their horror, that they have jeopardized not only the land and all who live there, but their own future as well.