What This River Keeps

Gregory Schwipps

Description

The threatened loss of their land disrupts the lives of a rural family

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In the rolling hills of southern Indiana, an elderly couple copes with the fear that their river bottom farm—the only home they've ever known—will be taken from them through an act of eminent domain. The river flowing through their land, where the old man has fished nearly every day of his life, may be dammed to form a reservoir. Their son, meanwhile, sinks deeper into troubles of his own, struggling to determine his place in a new romantic relationship and the duty he owes to his family's legacy. What This River Keeps is a beautiful and heartfelt novel that reflects upon what it means to love a place and a family, and the sometimes staggering cost of that love.

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Sujets

• General officer
• General
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 23 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253007131
• Langue: English

Extrait

Praise for What This River Keeps
With vivid, lyrical prose, Greg Schwipps has taken an age-old theme - man s relationship to the land - and made it new. You don t have to know anything about fish or rivers or even country living to be swept up in this story about how a vanishing landscape can tear apart a fragile human ecosystem. His characters are a delightful crew of misfits who sneak into your affections and set up camp. They fish and cook and fight and lie and love and take off down the highway in search of answers. We worry for them and celebrate their wit and perseverance.
-Lili Wright, author of the travel memoir Learning to Float.
Often very funny, always lyrically beautiful, What This River Keeps is a powerful reminder of the cost of the American romance with profit and progress, and of the abiding strength of the people of America s Heartland. Even more, it s about that eminent domain, the heartland, and the complicated ways love - for a friend, a spouse, a child, a parent, a dog, a river - endures, even when the waters are rising and all hope seems lost.
-Beth Lordan, author of And Both Shall Row and But Come Ye Back: A Novel in Stories
WHAT THIS RIVER KEEPS

break away b ks
WHAT THIS RIVER KEEPS
A Novel
GREG SCHWIPPS
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bloomington Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, Indiana 47404-3797 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796
Fax orders 812-855-7931
2012 by Gregory Schwipps
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schwipps, Greg.
What this river keeps : a novel / Greg Schwipps.
p. cm.- (Break away books)
ISBN 978-0-253-00236-5 (pb : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-
00713-1 (ebook) 1. Indiana-Fiction. I. Title.
PS3619.C5W47 2012
813 .6-DC23
2012001835
1 2 3 4 5 17 16 15 14 13 12
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Postlude
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Epilogue
For Alissa,
And in memory of Helen Millican and Clyde Schwipps
No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
- The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution
Loss of sentimental value, of historic interest, and emotional trauma associated with having to sell property through condemnation are not compensable under the law and may not be considered.
- Your Rights to Private Property: What to Do When the Government Wants to Acquire Your Land
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I grew up on a working farm outside of Milan, Indiana, and while almost nothing of this novel is autobiographical, that land is where this story begins. I thank my parents, Richard and Mary Lou, for showing me the value of places and for their never-ending support. When I was a boy, they were the kind of parents who thought crows made good pets, and I owe them a great deal for that.
My writing professors at DePauw University changed my life with their inspiration and knowledge. Tom Chiarella, Barbara Bean, and David Field were, and still are, some of the best teachers a young writer could have.
In the MFA program at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, I was blessed to write among a wonderful group of peers with gracious professors like Lisa Knopp, Ricardo Cruz, KK Collins, Beth Lordan, and Kent Haruf.
While researching eminent domain, I spoke with many people who shared their stories and helped me understand the process. Many thanks to Jo MacPhail, the world s best reference librarian, along with Reese and Susan Nicholls, Wayne and Karen Snyder, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
For their medical expertise, I offer thanks to my buddies Dr. Matt Pisano and Dr. Jeff Bohmer. And for his legal advice, Tom Nolasco.
Thanks to fellow Hoosier Richard Fields for his amazing cover art, and to Bruce Roberts for his technical support.
I thank most earnestly first readers Lili Wright, Chris Biggs, Tom Chiarella, Beth Lordan and Kent Haruf for their insight and patience.
For her stories and unique grandmotherly support, I am indebted to Luella Schwipps.
Sue Harris, the Coffeys, the Caytons, and the Longs have my heartfelt thanks as well.
I ve taught at DePauw for over ten years, and during that time I ve had the honor of working with many wonderful students. To name one would necessitate naming more, so I thank them collectively but sincerely for their support and friendship.
I would also like to acknowledge my colleagues in the English Department at DePauw, and the University itself, which has been incredibly supportive of my professional development. Thanks in particular to the Amy Braddock Fund and the John and Janice Fisher Fund.
I am grateful to Matt Davis at Ghost Road Press for bringing this novel to life, and to Linda Oblack at Indiana University Press for bringing it back home to Indiana.
This book owes much to the East and West Forks of the White River of central and southern Indiana, and to every catfish I ve caught from those waters.
It s not easy to fish all night, through storms, snakes, mosquitoes, and mud. I offer dirty thanks to my brothers, who are almost as obsessed with catfish as I am: Ron, Tim, and Ben. And the four-legged: Indy, P-Dog, and Grizzly. As Shipley would say: Hold Em Hook.
And finally, where would I be without the support of my Kentucky Sweet Wife, Alissa? She is all these things-editor, fishing partner, friend, wife-and more. Her love and encouragement made this book possible.
To all, I say again: many thanks. Love and respect.
CHAPTER ONE
The two old men slept on the bank of the dirty flooded river, and from above they would ve appeared as dead men-corpses washed ashore and left to rot in the coming sun. The river, swollen and thick in the predawn light, looked capable of carrying bodies along with its load of sticks, spinning logs and bottles. Here and there floated a child s ball, a doll s head. The men were not yet dead, but the morning s heat hadn t arrived to revive them from their jagged sleep. In a small depression in the sand between their prone forms smoke crept from a chunk of wood. Both men lay partially covered by sleeping bags, and they reposed with pieces of clothing knotted under their heads. They slept as men who had spent many nights on riverbanks. They slept on the sand that the river had carried for miles and for centuries and they slept on the earth as if they belonged to it.
Even in his sleep Frank was aware of his spine. He opened his eyes and his back woke up with him, and its pain yawned and grew. Above him was the soft gray light of early morning. His backbone felt as cold and dead as a lead pipe, like rigor mortis had set in and fused the vertebrae together. The pain hadn t been a dream. Waking up to it was like feeling the first cold splashes of rain from a storm that had been thundering just over the ridge for hours-a confirmation.
Clouds of mist hung over the current, a ghost river flowing. Above the woods around them the fog wasn t there, only the pale light of sunrise, but wherever the water ran the mist rose. He lay on his back and studied the sky. It was always strange to be given sight again, after staring into darkness all night long. But now different birds called. He d been paying so much attention to this particular place it was as if he d never known another life. Maybe he d been here, on this riverbank, forever. Maybe he didn t have a wife, a son, a farm? Of course he did. It was time to get up again.
He looked over at Chub. Across the fire-it was still smoldering in the heavy dew-Chub lay stretched out like a side of beef. His mouth hung open and a cloud of gnats suspended over his face. Some were walking across his cheek, and Frank wondered how anyone could sleep through such a distraction. He took a hand out from his sleeping bag, picked up a smooth pebble, and threw it in Chub s direction. It hit his bag with a soft pop. Chub slept on. Frank threw another pebble and this one hit him in his thick neck. Chub s eyes opened slowly and deliberately and a giant hand came up and wiped at the gnats around his eyes and hairy brows.
You got a pack of pecker gnats swarmin you, Frank said.
Chub said nothing but rolled over and reached for the zipper on his sleeping bag. It had worked down as he slept and was wadded around his midsection. His naked upper body lay on the bare ground, and as he moved sand stuck to his skin.