Where the River Ends by Charles Martin
This review contains some minor spoilers that all become evident early in the novel. There are some short passages and details presented, but I do not recommend reading the novel. If you plan to read it, this review is not for you.
Where the River Ends by Charles Martin is annoyingly frustrating. The novel has so much potential. First, it is an actual novel with a beginning, middle, and end. It has a story to tell and a point to convey while telling it. There are characters who develop and grow and evolve throughout the 371 pages. There are moments of joy and tenderness and tragedy and fear.
Where the River Ends is complete and whole and finished.
It is a beautifully constructed story. I have never read any of Martin's other works, but it is evident he is skilled at building scenery and background. I'd never heard of the St. Marys River before reading the novel, but I feel like I know it now. If I was to ride a canoe down the river tomorrow, I am fairly certain I would be able to point out certain landmarks and features. Martin's writing put me there. He knows what he's doing. Except for the plot.
Since legalities were very much in my mind throughout my reading of the novel, let me begin my criticisms by saying, These are the facts, and they are indisputable:
- Abbie's father is the most powerful politician in South Carolina. He was a two-term governor who has since become a four-term Senator. The Senator hates Doss. Hates Doss. He refused to allow Abbie and Doss to marry; because of his influence, she had to blackmail a judge into marrying them.
- After Abbie and Doss were married, the Senator did not speak a word to him for two full years. In fact, Doss was not even allowed to attend family functions.
- The Senator has arranged for home hospice care for Abbie and wants her to spend her final days at home with her family, meaning him and her step-mother.
- The central portion of the plot centers around a trip undertaken by Doss Michaels and his dying wife, Abbie. The trip, along the entire length of the St. Marys River via canoe, is a recreation of Doss and Abbie's honeymoon and a fulfillment of a promise Doss made to Abbie sometime after her cancer diagnosis. The trip is Abbie's idea; Doss does not think she can make it, but she insists on making the journey, "all the way from Moniac."
- Traversing the entire St. Marys is grueling and dangerous. The first few miles are very thin and shallow. There is very little paddling; most of the time is spent pushing, pulling, and carrying the canoe.
- The trip begins just after the Doss and Abbie receive the news that she is out of medical options and that, at best, she has a few weeks left to live.
- Given Abbie's state of health, she requires a great deal of medication, mostly comprised of controlled narcotics for pain. The only ways to obtain enough of the medication to last the duration of trip down the river are a doctor writing a prescription for an illegal amount or for Doss to steal them.
- Before leaving for Moniac, Abbie writes a letter to her father. By the time he receives it, they are well on their way.
Let's look at these facts in conjunction with each other. Abbie is adamant that Doss take her on this trip along the St. Marys. My interpretation of the exchange between the two of them is that she guilts him into making the trip. She is a dying end-stage cancer patient. Abbie is so close to death that on the fifth page of Chapter One, Doss referring to her father, Senator Coleman, tells his wife, "He's sending over a team of people in the morning to…'collect you.'" Her life is at its end, but before she expires, she wants to make this trip, a reenactment of their honeymoon. That's fine, except for the fact that Senator Coleman wants her home. The Senator is the most powerful man in South Carolina, which means that Doss and Abbie can't just leave. They have to sneak out of town so as not to be noticed, not to be seen, not to be found. Neither Abbie nor Doss expect her to survive the two-week journey down the river. Her doctor said she had, "A week. Maybe two." In other words, they both know that the end of the journey would find Doss Michaels a widower of a woman who'd been missing for a couple of weeks.
Oh, I left out one indisputable fact. There are exactly five characters in the novel we know are not White. First, we meet the man responsible for Doss and Abbie meeting. As Doss walked through a park on his way home one night, he came across a man attacking a woman. The text describing the man states, "He looked like the guy in
The Green Mile, only meaner." A little later, we learn the man is six feet and ten inches tall. The valiant Doss jumps on the man and gets himself beaten up in order to defend the defenseless woman. Of course she had to fall in love with him.
Next, we are introduced to Mr. Jake, the one-eyed man who taught "Miss Abbie" how to dance when she was a little girl. Except as an attempt to show that the rich and powerful of Charleston are not the racists outsiders think them to be, I can think of no reason for Mr. Jake or Doss' meeting him to be included in the story.
Then we get to Rosalia. Rosalia seems to have been a cook, maid, and nanny for the Colemans when Abbie was a little girl. According to Abbie, "She would comb my hair and tell me I was pretty long before I knew the meaning of the word." She, too was scarred. "Rosalia fled her country when I was just a baby," Abbie tells us. "But not before a man with a machete got a hold of her." Thanks to that man with the machete, Rosalia has no left breast. Rosalia's purpose is for Abbie to help Doss realize that beauty can be found anywhere, even where it seems to be nonexistent. Here's the exchange (it made me sick):
"Look through here and show her what she's always wanted to see." She slid her hand into mine. "Show her that she's beautiful beyond measure."
I stared at the horror staring back at me. "How?"
Her breath was warm on my ear. "Search what you see and find the one thing that makes you want to look again."
Doss did as he was told, and his portrait made Abbie cry and give him their first kiss. How lovely.
The final two non-White individuals are two men who shared a jail cell with Doss. Ellswood Maxwell Lamont Augustus III, a crystal meth addict, and a drug dealer with a voice like James Earl Jones. Fine, upstanding individuals these two were.
Abbie is very much what my wife would call a Mary Sue. She's not just the Senator's daughter; she is also a celebrity in her own right. As Doss' college friend James AKA Mr. Exposition #1 put it, Abbie was, "…the spokeswoman for one of the major cosmetics lines in the country—who also happens to have been voted by the
New York Times as one of the hundred most beautiful faces in the United States—whose face, by the way, made the cover of three of the most highly read prime-time magazines in the country…" And she became the most sought after interior designer in the American South.
Abbie's perfect. Absolutely perfect. She doesn't do anything for herself; it's all for everyone else, especially Doss. She even made him into a great artist. After their wedding, she planned and paid for a year-long trip around the world so she could show him and teach him about all the great artists in the world. In Doss' words:
I remember leaving the hall where David stands. Walking out, we walked by all the friezes he created. Nothing but huge chunks of granite with these forms of half-people climbing out of the rocks. It's like they're breaking free. Escaping. And when I walk back down that hallway in my mind, I realize that Abbie had done that for me.
She led me to her river, and I drank deeply.
We returned home and I discovered that Abbie had given me a gift I had not anticipated. I stood before my easel and found that I saw beauty in the not-so-beautiful, even in the grotesque. What she had birthed with Rosalia, she had now shaped and matured.
And how about this exchange while the young couple shopped for wedding rings:
"Doss, I don't need a diamond."
"Abbie, every girl deserves a diamond."
"Well, then, I'll just keep this one until that day comes. And when it does, I'll wear them both."
How sweet.
Doss, on the other hand, is poor. Dirt poor. Grew up in a trailer park with his single mom and her alcoholic abusive boyfriend poor. Had no relatives to care for him after his mother died, so he just hung around the trailer park until he earned an art scholarship to college poor. He had no friends in high places, only one powerful enemy. In a case of his word against anyone's, John Doe was a clear favorite.
We already know that Abbie is dying, but it becomes clear very early on that either Doss must die, too, or he must go to jail. Otherwise the novel would lose all claims of realism. She was famous. Her father was rich, famous, and powerful. Abbie's disappearance would be a national news story, and her father would be out for blood. Right off the bat we have kidnapping and either manslaughter or murder. Add Abbie's medication, which Doss acquired by convincing her doctor to give him the combination to the controlled substances safe and then breaking into the office where the narcotics were kept, and you can include grand larceny, breaking and entering, and possession of a controlled substance in the list of crimes to be charged against Doss. The St. Marys River establishes much of the border between Georgia and Florida—since Abbie and Doss lived in Charleston, South Carolina, he crossed state lines to commit every single one of those crimes. Both Abbie and Doss know this, yet she insists it is a journey they must make.
They know it won't end well. They know they are setting Doss up to take the fall for some serious charges. Before they ever get in the water, Doss goes to buy some supplies from a former boss, and says, "It'd be better—for me—if you'd wait a week or so to run my card." They knew. And I get that is supposed to show their love and commitment to each other. But what loving woman would willingly and knowingly send her husband to jail unnecessarily just to satisfy a dying wish? I'd hate to be married to that woman.
Did I mention that the trip begins as Hurricane Annie is making her way toward the southeastern coast of the United States? That does not deter Abbie and Doss. Once they've started, they cannot turn back. Not when her disappearance becomes the top story in the nation. Not when Senator Coleman holds a press conference in front of his house begging Doss to bring Abigail Grace back home. Not when a crew of bandits rob the Michaels of their supplies. Not when that same crew catches up to them later and tries to gang rape Abbie (they were rescued by a defrocked priest turned crop duster who happened to be flying by). . Oh no, they cannot quit, even on Abbie's death-canoe. Annie's remnants flood the river and all of the surrounding areas, and the closer they get to the Atlantic Ocean, the more violent and unpredictable the current becomes. Five miles from the end of the St. Marys River, the current flips the canoe over, leaving Abbie and Doss washed ashore with no transportation. Abbie says to Doss, "Have you ever broken a promise to me?...Then don't start now." Doss, ever the obedient husband, finds a drifting log, hauls his dying wife on top, grabs a hold himself, and off they go again.
It could be very inspiring. But it's too ridiculous to be taken seriously. A warning on the book's cover says, "This book will break your heart." I don't see how. This book stirred zero emotional response within me except for the anger at how stupid and racist and classist the author seems to be. This story is not real enough, not human enough, to elicit emotional responses from people who have been through the gauntlet themselves. In fact, reading this novel prompted me to log onto Twitter and mockingly ask, "Has there ever been a work of fiction that handled cancer even remotely realistically?" Martin threw just about every cancer cliché I know into this one.
After losing her breasts to her cancer, Abbie tries to convince Doss to get a girlfriend. The night before driving to Moniac to begin the trek down the river, Abbie gives Doss a list of women he should consider marrying after she dies.
Doss is the only man to accompany his wife to the chemotherapy sessions. Other husbands start off going, but eventually they all leave their wives. All except Doss. Of course this leads to a screaming fight with Abbie screaming at Doss to not divorce her. It's not real. Yes, some men leave, but most do not. Even if they aren't great, most stay. Going overboard to emphasize a point only renders that point ineffective.
At one point, Heather, a woman whose husband is in treatment for cancer, throws herself at Doss. Dying for any type of physical affection, she tricks Doss into a drunken night on the town and tried to entice him into her room by undressing down to her thong while walking down the hall as Doss watches from the elevator. Doss, ever the faithful husband, the only cancer husband to not leave his wife, ignores Heather. Yet, he
forgets to lock his door, which leads to him stepping out of the shower to find a naked Heather lying in the bed at the exact moment Senator Coleman barges into the room. And of course Heather confessed her betrayal—and Doss' fidelity—to Abbie. "We had a good cry over it," says Abbie. "She said you were everything she'd ever wanted in a husband." Everything, indeed.
How exactly was this story supposed to make people emote?
Furthermore, Martin's prose is very self-righteous. His disdain for certain groups of people comes across effortlessly, and is written in such a way that makes it hard to believe these feelings are held only by the character, Doss, and not shared by the author. In addition to a long riff about people who follow the church of NASCAR, there was his description of the three men who attacked them: Limpy, Troll and Coal Miner. Or his describing young men smoking on the riverbank as "wannabe rappers." Martin comes off to me as very anti-blue collar. Sure Doss Michaels was poor, but he was a brilliant artist. In this way, Doss is presented as a poor aristocrat, but an aristocrat nonetheless.
Where the River Ends is supposed to be a story of undying love, but the plot does not demonstrate that. The central plot, itself, is not a demonstration of love. You cannot read this novel and come away believing the wonderful Abbie loved her husband—not if you understand the concept of love. The entire plot is an exposition on Abbie's selfishness. Sure, she played the, "you should get a girlfriend," card and helped him to find the self-confidence and motivation he needed to succeed as an artist, but she put Doss into the position of committing felony crimes to fulfill her dying wish. We are told that the trip down the St. Marys was a gift from her to him, that it was her way of giving Doss' heart back to him; but she gave him no way out of the trouble the trip caused. Her dying wish created a situation where he needed a miracle to avoid life in prison at best and the death penalty at worst. That's what her dying wish did. That is the situation created by her final act of love toward him, her final "anniversary present" for him.
Martin loses it completely with the ending. Remember what I said about knowing very early in the novel that Doss would end up either dead or in jail or else
Where the River Ends would lost all claims on realism? Well…it wouldn't be right for the first 95% of the novel to be completely wrong and then for it to end well, right? Exactly.
By riding the log, Abbie and Doss did manage to make it to the end of the St. Marys. On the shore there is where she died. A day later, Doss is arraigned. The judge AKA Mr. Exposition #2 tells us that Doss is charged with all of the following: kidnapping, breaking and entering, trespassing, larceny, grand larceny, possession of a controlled substance, resisting arrest, assault, battery of an officer, illegal administration of a drug, and first degree murder. As most of the crimes took place on the river separating Georgia and Florida, jurisdiction was an issue. At Senator Coleman's request, Florida, a capital punishment state, was chosen. A few days later, however, the Senator received and read Abbie's letter, and his entire viewpoint on Doss has changed. "You gave Abbie what I never did. You gave her yourself," he says. All was forgiven; everything was changed. All charges dropped except for the narcotics offenses. Probation and community service. Just like that. What about the Senator finding the naked woman in Doss' room while Abbie was in treatment, you ask? The defrocked priest, to whom Doss had
confessed, somehow visits the Senator and tells him everything that had happened.
Senator Coleman and Doss become buddies and live happily ever after.
Cancer has been in my life for a long time, and it will continue to be in my life. It is a seemingly inescapable truth. My mother died from cancer. My wife is a cancer survivor. My mother-in-law is fighting cancer. I have spent the better part of my adult life helping to make cancer drugs. One has to work pretty hard to create a story about a woman slowly dying of cancer that does not make me emote. With
Where the River Ends, Charles Martin was that one.
D
