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Published Oct 2022
336 pages
Genre: Essays
Publication Information
When Chris Dombrowski burst onto the literary scene with Body of Water, the book was acclaimed as "a classic" (Jim Harrison) and its author compared with John McPhee. Dombrowski begins the highly anticipated The River You Touch with a question as timely as it is profound: "What does a meaningful, mindful, sustainable inhabitance on this small planet look like in the anthropocene?"
He answers this fundamental question of our time initially by listening lovingly to rivers and the land they pulse through in his adopted home of Montana. Transplants from the post-industrial Midwest, he and his partner, Mary, assemble a life based precariously on her income as a schoolteacher, his as a poet and fly-fishing guide. Before long, their first child arrives, followed soon after by two more, all "free beings in whom flourishes an essential kind of knowing […], whose capacity for wonder may be the beacon by which we see ourselves through this dark epoch." And around the young family circles a community of friends—river-rafting guides and conservationists, climbers and wildlife biologists—who seek to cultivate a way of living in place that moves beyond the mythologized West of appropriation and extraction.
Moving seamlessly from the quotidian—diapers, the mortgage, a threadbare bank account—to the metaphysical—time, memory, how to live a life of integrity—Dombrowski illuminates the experience of fatherhood with intimacy and grace. Spending time in wild places with their children, he learns that their youthful sense of wonder at the beauty and connectivity of the more-than-human world is not naivete to be shed, but rather wisdom most of us lose along the way—wisdom that is essential for the possibility of transformation.
"A heartfelt memoir of life and fatherhood in Big Sky country...Through a collection of vignettes, the author shares his concerns for the environment, the effects of the appropriation of land from Native inhabitants, and the emotions the landscape stirs in him...Nature lovers will be captivated by Dombrowski's lyrical descriptions of the land and its wildlife, while parents are sure to relate to his familial challenges and sacrifice. A beautifully and poignantly written tribute to a beloved landscape and its spirit." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Nature writer Dombrowski evokes both wilderness splendor and the hardscrabble effort of living paycheck to paycheck in this exquisite work. In lyrical language replete with vivid imagery...Punctuated by the frank candor of a writer weighing sacrifice and art, this introspective memoir will hook fans of A River Runs Through It." - Publishers Weekly
"An intimate collection of related vignettes that ruminate on an outdoor life along Montana's stunning rivers and [Dombrowski's] challenging interior struggle over providing a dependable living for his growing family...[T]his is a complex, candid meditation on parenting, fishing, writing, and living in a manner that will stir the blood and fire the intellect." - Booklist
"A lyrical exploration of a beloved place and lifestyle steeped in the natural world, by a writer for whom quality of life supersedes the need for financial security. Will appeal to readers who relish memoirs that skillfully intertwine nature, the American West, and fishing." - Library Journal
"In slow, eddying prose, [The River You Touch] mines an ordinary life for evocative reflections on family, friendship, and the meaning found in a rugged landscape...[A] profound, moving memoir that contemplates the earth, family, and community in its tributes to the intimate beauty of western Montana." - Foreword Reviews
"In the way a fable points us toward rightness, so The River You Touch leads us to a necessary truth: that deep knowledge and love of a place shapes us in all the ways we will need to survive. With poetry, vulnerability, and crisp storytelling, Dombrowski takes us into a wild, river-thrummed Montana, and into the stormswept territory of marriage and family. It's a journey with a guide who knows the country at a cellular level, and whose bafflement and wonder renews our own. The magic of the book is that I came away convinced that learning to love a trout, or an autumn snowfall, or a wolf crossing a river, would teach me to love a friend or a partner in pain—and so to love and be connected to all beings. Damn." - Peter Heller, bestselling author of The Dog Stars, The River, and The Guide
This information about The River You Touch 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.
Chris Dombrowski is the author of The River You Touch. He is also the author of Body of Water: A Sage, A Seeker, and the World's Most Elusive Fish, and of three acclaimed collections of poems. Currently the Assistant Director of the Creative Writing program at the University of Montana, he lives with his family in Missoula.
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