Anne Whitney Pierce is a life-long Cantabrigian and the author of two books, “Galaxy Girls: Wonder Women” (1993) and “Rain Line.” (2000) She has taught in the graduate writing program at Emerson College in Boston. Her short fiction has appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, The Chattahoochee Review, The Boston Globe Magazine, Kansas Quarterly, Crosscurrents, The Southern Review, among others. Her work has been included in the O’Henry Prize Story Collection and has won several awards, including the Nelson Algren Award, the Willa Cather Fiction Prize, the Paterson Fiction Prize, New Voices Award and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award. Her new book “Down to the River” is a family saga set in the late 1960s in Cambridge, Massachusetts against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. (amazon, 2022)
“Down to the River” – The story starts with a Prologue where Chickie and Hen’s story begins. Chickie is Minerva’s nickname and Hen is short for Henry. They are first cousins born in 1951 and their fathers are identical twins named Naylor Potts (Nash) and Remington Potts (Remi). The twin brothers grow up as entitled, Harvard-educated, golden boys, heirs to an old, but dwindling family fortune. With the passage of time, family money begins to disappear and their lives begin to fall apart. The first chapter begins in 1966 with Nash and Remi in their mid-forties and partners in a sporting goods store in Harvard Square. The twins’ marriages are in trouble. Their youngest children, Chickie and Hen, are coming of age during the turbulent urban wilderness of the late 1960s— school bomb threats, racial tensions, war protests and demonstrations at Harvard and beyond. With all hell breaking loose at home, and any semblance of “parenting” hanging ragged in the wind, Chickie and Hen are left mostly on their own. Suddenly freed from old rules and restrictions, they head out onto the streets of Cambridge, which become their concrete playground, tumbling headlong into a world of politics, sex, drugs, rock and roll.
What was it like to come from a privileged family in the Boston area during the turbulent sixties and seventies? Anne Whitney Pierce gives readers the saga of the Potts family who seem to have it all but deep down, they face the same internal struggles and dark family secrets as everyone else. The family is born with money but eventually that goes away and their troubles grow against the background of a country that is besieged by riots, war, and general uncertainty. From the children who are facing college life and a possible Vietnam draft to the parents whose marriages are in trouble, nothing is as it seems from the outside looking in. The author describes the lives of the characters through the years so the character development is deep and complex. Language wise, it is an easy read but it is tough to get through some of the grimmer parts. This just goes to prove that life is not always smooth sailing and how we get through the tough times determines and shapes our character. Readers familiar with the area, specifically Cambridge, will no doubt feel a tough of nostalgia, especially if they grew up in the Vietnam era. Anne Whitney Pierce does an excellent job of bringing one family’s history to light and her writing style makes for an interesting novel. “Down to the River” may make some readers uncomfortable but it is a portrait of one family’s experiences during a troublesome era that just might mirror society’s present-day struggles. It is recommended for readers who appreciate family life fiction mixed in with historical fiction.
“Raised to be God-fearing, if not religious, both Violet and Faye came to think of all this – their lives as silent, fettered wives and mothers – as the tradeoff for marrying well.”
*The author received a copy of this book for an honest review. The views and opinions expressed here belong solely to her.
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