This Bright River

A Novel

By Patrick Somerville (Hardcover Book, 2012)

Lauren Keller had left Wisconsin to become a doctor in Africa, where she excelled in medicine and failed at love. Her broken heart sends her reeling back to her hometown, where she establishes herself as a cashier at the local diner, determined to cut herself off from career, friendship or romance.

Ben Hanson has made some big mistakes in his young life, but he returns to his hometown hoping for a chance to change and leave behind the mess he made. Once back in Wisconsin, he soon learns that he's not the only one with secrets to escape; his family is still fractured, unable to uncover or admit the truth behind his cousin's death a decade earlier.

As Ben tries to unravel the mysteries surrounding his cousin's death, and as Lauren cautiously starts to explore the world outside the diner's door, their paths intersect. Damaged, searching, each could be exactly what the other needs. But secrets and wounds are hard to hide, and harder still to overcome. A compelling family drama, and a sweet and surprising love story, THIS BRIGHT RIVER confirms Patrick Somerville's status as one of the most exciting young writers at work today.

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- Format: Hardcover Book
- Price: $24.99 US/$27.99 CAN
- ISBN-13: 9780316129312
- On Sale Date: 06/26/2012
- Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
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Formats Available: Hardcover Book, Trade Paperback, Electronic Book, Audiobook
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Patrick Somerville grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and later earned his MFA from Cornell University. He is also the author of the story collection Trouble (Vintage, 2006), the novel The Cradle (Little, Brown, 2009), and the story collection The Universe in Miniature in Miniature (Featherproof Books, 2010), and his writing has appeared in One Story, Epoch, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007. He lives with his wife in Chicago, where he teaches creative writing at Northwestern University.

THIS BRIGHT RIVER by Patrick Somerville

PRAISE FOR THE CRADLE:

"[A] magical debut novel...A deeply gratifying modern fable...with the light, graceful touch that makes Mr. Somerville, also the author of a short-story collection ("Trouble"), someone to watch. ..As a small novel with unexpectedly wide range, "The Cradle" mixes the profound emotional pull of parent-child connections with comically eccentric touches."
--- Janet Maslin, New York Times
PRAISE FOR THIS BRIGHT RIVER:

"Serpentine and hypnotic, This Bright River depicts two vivid characters knocked hard by life, on a perilous journey that reveals the weight and pull of family history. The result is a novel that is both intimate and mysterious, harrowing and brave." (author of The End of Everything and Dare Me).
"[A] surprisingly tender novel...What matters are Somerville's characters, rendered with such warm appreciation of their complexity and resilience that, although he declines to predict their future, we have every reason to hope they will continue making slow, tentative progress toward healing the wounds of the past."
--- Wendy Smith, Chicago Tribune
"[A] marvelous debut...a road narrative that gradually accumulates the mythic echoes and dreamlike inevitability of allegory. Matt's search for the cradle takes on a picaresque nobility; he's like a blue-collar Odysseus, crisscrossing the Midwest in his quest to return home to his Penelope. What gives "The Cradle" its potent emotional resonance, however, is the way Somerville's prose calmly, relentlessly pulls at the Gothic skein of family tragedies that lurks behind the peeling paint and sagging porches, where a sense of inherited sin settles like a thick fog."
--- Michael Lindgren, Washington Post
PRAISE FOR THE UNIVERSE IN MINIATURE IN MINIATURE:

"Wide-ranging yet wonderfully authentic narrators...Somerville's originality shines...These densely layered tales invite multiple readings, but even a glance uncovers profound human connection beneath Somerville's often whimsical surface." (Publishers Weekly).
"Somerville returns to the short story and unleashes the full force of his mischievous imagination. [An] inventive and robust collection." (Booklist).
"Somerville has vast talent for invention and a flair for writing in a variety of voices." (Joseph Peschel, Boston Globe).
"With unflagging humor and an emphasis on how we are all in the same, utterly human situation, Somerville keeps the stories from creeping into despondency. It's as though he's both the creator of your pensive mood, and the friend who pulls the improbably silly antics that manage to make you smile in spite of it." (Kim Hedges, Minneapolis Star-Tribune).