As Scoblic moved on with her life in the wider world, going to school, joining the Peace Corps, and working in New York City, she still felt anchored to the river and the home she knew, proving her father was right when he said his children would be "lost without the river."
The book is episodic, a string of Scoblic's earliest memories through her adulthood revisits of her home town. She withholds some information hinted at early on, to be revealed later for more impact when readers know her family better. Otherwise, there is little tension or drive to her tale. This is a book to enjoy when you need a peaceful read, the literary equivalent of floating down the river and watching the shore slip by, or perhaps sitting in a hammock under a spreading tree on a warm summer's day.
Memoirs are tricky things, especially if readers don't share a commonality of place or time. But they also allow us to see the world through another's eyes--the best also moving us to reconsider and recall our own experiences. After reading Lost Without the River I have a better appreciation for how the land shapes us, and recall my own river days.
I received an ARC in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
Barbara Scoblic is a hybrid. Still part country gal after living in New York City for more than fifty years. She was raised on a small farm in South Dakota. From earliest childhood she was alert to the beauties and vagaries of the natural world. She’d head for the woods or the fields, searching for the first flowers of spring. She’d watch as the light of an autumn day turned the color of the cottonwood trees from yellow to gold.
Concurrent with that appreciation of the natural world around her, she grappled with a growing impatience to see what was beyond the farm.
As a young woman, she succeeded. Her drive to break free took her first to Thailand where, as a Peace Corps volunteer she was the sole westerner in a small town. Then on an exhilarating trip with a fellow volunteer, she traveled throughout Asia, the Middle East, and then on to Greece.
Throughout her travels, she always carried her portable typewriter. At night she wrote letters, articles, and poems. Back in the states she described her experiences in a series for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Lost Without the River: A Memoir
By Barbara Hoffbeck Scoblic
She Writes Press
ISBN 9781631525315
Publication Date: April 16, 2019
List Price: 16.95 paperback
*****
I grew up in Tonawanda, NY near the Niagara River. Dad's memoirs are full of the river. My family rented a "dock" on Grand Island when I was a girl. We spent many hours on the river as a family before we moved in 1963.
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| Along the Niagara River in the1950s |
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| Dad and I on the Niagara River 1957 |
