#40 - The River Wife

Book No: 40
Title: The River Wife
Author: Jonis Agee
Genre: Fiction
Published: 2007
Obtained: 2007/Doubleday
Completed:
No. of Pages: 396
Rating: 4/5*****

It is 1930; seventeen years old, and pregnant, Hedie Rails has just married Clement Ducharme and has moved into his family estate, a remote home in rural Missouri. Hedie’s new husband seems to be involved in some shady business, going out at all hours of the night, sometimes coming up bloodied and hung over. While roaming the house at night Hedie finds the journals of Annie Lark, the first wife of Jacques Ducharme, the larger than life ancestor of Clement and the man who built the estate. Through Hedie’s reading we learn how Annie was rescued by Jacques during the New Madrid earthquake. With Annie’s’ story anchoring the early life of this saga, and Hedie’s the latter part, we also learn the stories of the other women and their children in Jacques Ducharme’s life, and how each of them struggled to find their place in a man’s world and how Jacques ruled them all with an iron fist. Throughout the book it is the spirit of Annie that inhabits everyone’s memories and her ghost that inhabits the Ducharme estate.
I was quite entranced with this book, in particular Annie’s story, but all of the ‘river wives’ had fascinating stories, except perhaps Hedie, whose story was the most uninvolving of them all. All in all I think this was a very worthwhile read and believe there is a lot here for book clubs, it’s a wonder to me this book isn’t more popular with discussion groups.