A couple of years ago, a friend of mine mentioned that he had seen a "perfect" movie. I asked him what he meant, and he said that, for him, a perfect movie was one that couldn't have been any better than it was. This didn't mean it was the best movie he had ever seen, but that as he watched it and thought about it afterwards, he couldn't think of anything he wanted to change.That's how I feel about The Banks of Certain Rivers by Jon Harrison.The book is the story of one man's struggle to rebuild his life after tragedy. Several years earlier, a freak accident left Neil Kazenzakis' wife, Wendy, permanently comatose. Since then, Neil, a popular high school teacher, has been struggling to keep himself together and raise his teenaged son, Christopher. More recently, he's started dating Lauren, a sweet and patient woman who understands Neil's desire to keep their relationship secret so that his son's delicately balanced life doesn't tumble back into chaos.Then Neil breaks up a fight after school between some kids on the football team. Next thing he knows, footage of the incident has been posted to YouTube, but it's been manipulated so that it looks like Neil is abusing a student, not saving him. As the views of the YouTube video spiral out of control, Neil's placed on suspension from work while the school investigates. And when Lauren reveals some shocking news of her own, Neil slowly starts to unravel, leaving him no choice but to confront things he's long tried to avoid.So why do I call this book 'perfect'? First of all, there's the use of language. Harrison has a way with words and imagery that catches your attention. Take this passage from the prologue:"A moment after that the room filled with a loud thumping noise, and every head in the place turned to see a blue Medivac helicopter ease from the sky down to a spot on the grass as gently as a butterfly lights on a twig."Or this opening sentence from the first chapter:"One humid night at the beginning of the summer, while jetliners rumbled overhead and fireflies winked green along the far-off row of brambles, my best friend and I sat by the fire pit in the field behind my house."In both instances, Harrison has perfectly set the scene with one sentence. You can hear that thumping Medivac, smell the campfire smoke. Most writers (myself included) struggle to do what seems effortless to Harrison.Another element is the deep layering of the story. There are no under-developed, walk-on characters. From Neil's best-friend, Alan, who is one of the funnier characters I've encountered in fiction in a while, to his aging mother-in-law, to the head of the school board who cares more about appearances than the truth, every character has a role to play and a clear personality, again, often sketched with a few, simple, penetrating sentences.And finally there's the themes, not only of loss and renewal, grief and joy, but the idea of memory. How it shifts and twists to fit our own view of ourselves, our own view of life, and how this can ultimately be our undoing. Harrison writes:"What is a memory, anyway? Is it an indelible record, unimpeachable, frozen in some synaptic arrangement and stored away for some moment it might be needed in the future? Or is it subject to editing and revision, something plastic that our brains can shape into another form we can handle, something less toxic than the original, something less able to poison us?"It is the answer to that question that lies at the heart of this story, and kept me thinking about it for a long time after I finished reading.The best books also make you consider things outside the book, and for me, here, it's the title, which comes from a Czeslaw Milosz poem called "I Sleep A Lot" that is partially quoted in the epigraph:When I couldn't do without alcohol, I drove myself on alcohol,When I couldn't do without cigarettes and coffee, I drove myselfOn cigarettes and coffee.I was courageous. Industrious. Nearly a model of virtue.But that is good for nothing. (...)I have read many books but I don't believe them.When it hurts we return to the banks of certain river.I know I'll be returning to the banks of this book to seek solace, to learn how to be a better writer, and, most of all, to be entertained.As a final thought, Harrison's book is also proof of something that's becoming more and more evident: that quality books can succeed solely through reader -- rather than traditional publisher -- support, these days. I can't say why Harrison ended up self-publishing this novel, but I think it's lucky for all of us he did. Because you should read it, and hey, at $3.99 there's no excuse not to.
Opening line: "One humid night at the beginning of summer, while jetliners rambled overhead and fireflies winked green along the far off row of brambles, my best friend and I sat by the fire pit along the far-off row of brambles behind my house.”~4.5~ Wow what a fantastic find Jon Harrison’s debut novel turned out to be. Just an all-round great read that I was sorry to finish as by the end I’d grown so attached to all the characters, I felt like I knew them, like they were friends of mine and I wasn’t ready to let them go.The Banks Of Certain Rivers is one of those books that I kept picturing as a movie while I was reading, it’s just such a great story. Slow burning, full of surprises, encompassing humor, drama, suspense, tragedy, love and life. Yup this has it all, along with some very good writing.I’ll admit that initially this was slow going (after the nail biting prologue) as the author just sort of drops you into it and you’re left trying to figure out who all these characters are and why their detailed back stories are so important. But as it all comes together, wow, I couldn’t read fast enough. So many twists and turns, and a very clever plot as even the smallest; most mundane of details becomes very important by the end. I personally never did figure out “who done it” and was left surprised many times.I don’t want to give away any plot details here, as this is SO worth discovering on your own, but I need to mention the e-mails. What a freakin genius idea. I am left wondering what happened to them though?High school teacher Neil Kazenzakis is hanging on by a thread. Of course he thinks everything is fine but with his wife permanently disabled, a girlfriend who wants a commitment and a teenage son he’s been keeping at arm’s length (so he doesn’t find out about the girlfriend) it’s not going to take much to topple his house of cards. And that’s exactly what happens. When dubious and career ending video footage of Neil surfaces online, and is picked up by the media, it looks like Neil will lose everything. Now he’s questioning his own memories of the event which in turn is making it difficult to prove his innocence let alone repair the damage. It’s also forced Neil to re-examine a few other issues he thought he’d dealt with. And then there’s his son Chris, probably not the best time for him to come clean about Lauren but there’s even more to come there as well. This was an excellent read that I highly recommend. I’ll be on the lookout for Jon Harrison’s next book. Cheers 355jb45
Do You like book The Banks Of Certain Rivers (2014)?
Real life is really messy. If anyone knows that, Neil Kazenzakis does. Up until the day his wife is injured in a life altering event, Neil would have sworn he had the perfect life. A perfect wife, a perfect son, a job that wasn't his first choice but still enjoyable, good in laws and great neighbors made for a fairly enjoyable life. And then things got messy.When Neil married Wendy, he had no idea that one day he'd be raising their son, Christopher, as a single parent. He also had no way of knowing that he would be watching out for his mother-in-law, who is showing early stages of Alzheimer's. He had no way of knowing that he'd fall in love with his mother-in-law's nurse. And he had no way of knowing he'd end up on YouTube. Before it's all over, Neil Kazenzakis will find himself fighting for his son, his job and his life.I normally don't care for male protagonists. Most books I read have female leads. I can relate to them, it's easier to understand where they're coming from. I never expected to be drawn into Neil's world and to actually care about what happened to him. So many books present flawless characters, but Jon Harrison has given Neil flaws aplenty. In doing so, he's created a real human being and the problems he's dealing with are ones that any of us might run into in our daily lives. There is no nice, neat way to fix any of the situations Neil finds himself in. And that's what makes his character so likable. I'm definitely looking forward to more from this author.
—Read In Colour
The unexpected happens and life changes in an instant. How do people cope with loss? How do they hold their lives together? When and how do they move on? What does it mean to love? What are the limits to love, if any? In “The Banks of Certain Rivers”, Jon Harrison grapples with these questions with big-hearted tenderness. Neil Kazenzakis, a popular high school teacher, “lost” his wife (Wendy) in a freak accident. His life spun out of control and he was cruelly confronted with the anguish of missing a soul mate and the challenges of parenting a young son and caring for a mother-in-law with dementia. But life moved on. Then Neil was further catapulted into a whirlpool of events that threatened the stability he had fought so hard to re-establish: an incriminating video footage that questioned his integrity as a teacher; a secret love affair he feared would hurt his son but that could no longer be kept under wraps. There was sufficient drama that made for page-turning reading but there too was a sure touch of realism. In many senses, The Banks of Certain Rivers” is a successful debut novel. There were no extraneous characters (each had a role that contributed meaningfully to the story); there was just the right wait time in elucidating what became of Wendy; there were beautifully written passages; there was the reader’s hope that things would work out for Neil and his son. For me, the last - whether one cares about the characters - is a litmus test of a good story.
—Laysee
This book was my in-flight entertainment on a seven-hour plane trip. I put it down to watch The Book Thief (great movie adaptation!), then finished it. It's smartly-paced and as easy to consume as an open bag of chips. Neil, the main character, is an appealing hero, though I did half expect him to be darker than he appeared. His wife is in a persistent vegetative state and the loss of her, even years later, has left him on shaky ground despite a wealth of loving relationships, including that with his teenage son. As the story progresses, shaky ground becomes quicksand and Neil must find a way to embrace his future and get on with his life. For those interested in genre labeling, if Neil were a women, this book would be marketed as women's fiction.
—Sonja Yoerg
