Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2017
336 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
The River of Kings, bestselling author of Fallen Land Taylor Brown artfully weaves three narrative strands - two brothers' journey down an ancient river, their father's tangled past, and the buried history of the river's earliest people - to evoke a legendary place and its powerful hold on the human imagination.
The Altamaha River, Georgia's "Little Amazon," is one of the last truly wild places in America. Crossed by roads only five times in its 137 miles, the black-water river is home to thousand-year-old virgin cypress, direct descendants of eighteenth-century Highland warriors, and a staggering array of rare and endangered species. The Altamaha is even rumored to harbor its own river monster, as well as traces of the oldest European fort in North America.
Brothers Hunter and Lawton Loggins set off to kayak the river, bearing their father's ashes toward the sea. Hunter is a college student, Lawton a Navy SEAL on leave; they were raised by an angry, enigmatic shrimper who loved the river, and whose death remains a mystery that his sons are determined to solve. As the brothers proceed downriver, their story alternates with that of Jacques le Moyne, the first European artist in North America, who accompanied a 1564 French expedition that began as a search for riches and ended in a bloody confrontation with Spanish conquistadors and native tribes.
Twining past and present in one compelling narrative, and illustrated with drawings that survived the 1564 expedition, The River of Kings is Taylor Brown's second novel: a dramatic and rewarding adventure through history, myth, and the shadows of family secrets.
"Starred Review. Drawing comparisons to James Dickey's Deliverance and Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain, Brown's impressive second novel (after Fallen Land) is an intense, solidly written story of family loyalty, Southern traditions, and haunting historic landscapes, all bound up in the mythical powers of the Altamaha River." - Library Journal
"Starred Review. A literary achievement: a complex, character-driven story that's powerful in concept and execution." - Kirkus
"Brown ties the three stories together with tales and sightings of an ancient river monster. Brown makes this nostalgic trip down the river a gorgeous ode to the Georgia coast." - Publishers Weekly
"With language as rich as floodplain soil, The River of Kings is a stunning Southern epic of tremendous heart and scope. Taylor Brown takes risks few other writers would chance and somehow manages to traverse those waters with an astounding grace and beauty." – David Joy, author of The Weight Of This World
"In The River of Kings Taylor Brown offers a brilliant braided history, water-tight and blood-bound. Each strand of time is laid atop the one before it to make an intricate fable: two brothers, paddling back against the past, and whatever monsters lurk beneath its surface. This book haunts itself. And Mr. Brown keeps getting better and better." – Ashley Warlick, author of The Arrangement
"The most exciting literary adventure fiction I've read since Deliverance. Taylor Brown's The River of Kings has it all: crackling drama, unforgettable characters, myth, the unspoiled natural world, love, laughter, and tragedy – all rendered in Brown's gorgeous, precise prose. The River of Kings is truly a great American novel." – Howard Frank Mosher, author of God's Kingdom
"Like a great body of water itself, The River of Kings is one moment grace and serenity, and the next moment hazard and threat, shifting in wonderfully unexpected ways, yet always in possession of a natural beauty you cannot help but admire." – Michael Farris Smith, author of Desperation Road and Rivers
"Taylor Brown spins fantastic and riveting historical fiction like no one else. The River of Kings is engrossing, exciting, poetic, with surprising moments of tenderness, and crafted with a master hand. The writing exhibits shades of Philipp Meyer, Richard Ford, Annie Proulx, and Anthony Doerr, but every book by Brown is all his own. If your curiosity is piqued by an exciting river adventure with rich character study and language that fairly leaps off the page, look no further—you've found your book." – Andria Williams, author of The Longest Night
This information about The River of Kings was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Harry Taylor
Taylor Brown grew up on the Georgia coast. He has lived in Buenos Aires, San Francisco, and the mountains of western North Carolina. He is the recipient of the Montana Prize in Fiction and a finalist for the Southern Book Prize. His novels include Fallen Land, The River of Kings, Gods of Howl Mountain, Pride of Eden, and Wingwalkers. He lives in Savannah, Georgia.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
Books are the carriers of civilization
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
