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    River Thieves
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    River Thieves
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    River Thieves
    Ebook416 pages6 hours

    River Thieves

    By Michael Crummey

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    In elegant, sensual prose, Michael Crummey crafts a haunting tale set in Newfoundland at the turn of the 19th century. A richly imagined story about love, loss and the heartbreaking compromises—both personal and political—that undermine lives, River Thieves is a masterful debut novel. Published in Canada and the United States, it joins a wave of classic literature from eastern Canada, including the works of Alistair MacLeod, Wayne Johnston and David Adams Richards, while resonating at times with the spirit of Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain and Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy.

    An enthralling story of passion and suspense, River Thieves captures both the vast sweep of history and the intimate lives of a deeply emotional and complex cast of characters caught in its wake.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House Publishing Group
    Release dateDec 15, 2009
    ISBN9780307374882
    Unavailable
    River Thieves
    Author

    Michael Crummey

    Michael Crummey wurde 1965 in der Bergarbeiterstadt Buchans, Neufundland, geboren und zog mit seiner Familie Ende der 1970er Jahre nach Wabush, Labrador. Er ging zur Universität und begann zu allem Überfluss bereits im ersten Jahr, Gedichte zu schreiben. Kurz vor Abschluss seines Studiums gewann er den Gregory Power Poetry Award. Schon Crummeys Debütroman »River Thieves« (2001) war wie »Galore« (2009) und »Sweetland« (2014) ein kanadischer Bestseller, er gewann in der Folge etliche Literaturpreise. Crummey lebt mit seiner Frau und drei Kindern in St. John’s, Neufundland.

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    Reviews for River Thieves

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      British naval officer David Buchan arrives on the Bay of Exploits in 1810 with orders to establish friendly contact with the elusive Beothuk, the aboriginal inhabitants known as “Red Indians” who have been driven almost to extinction. Aware that the success of his mission rests on the support of local white settlers, Buchan approaches the most influential among them, the Peytons, for assistance, and enters a shadowy world of allegiances and deep grudges. His closest ally, the young John Peyton Jr., maintains an uneasy balance between duty to his father — a powerful landowner with a reputation as a ruthless persecutor of the Beothuk - and his troubled conscience. Cassie Jure, the self-reliant, educated and secretive woman who keeps the family house, walks a precarious line of her own between the unspoken but obvious hopes of the younger Peyton, her loyalty to John Senior, and a determination to maintain her independence. When Buchan's peace expedition goes horribly awry, the rift between father and son deepens.With a poetic eye and a gift for storytelling, Crummey vividly depicts the stark Newfoundland backcountry. He shows the agonies of the men toiling towards the caribou slaughtering yards of the Beothuk; of coming upon the terrible beauty of Red Indian Lake, its frozen valley lit up by the sunset like “a cathedral lit with candles”; then retreating through rotten ice that slices at clothing and skin as they flee the disaster. He breathes life into the rich vernacular of the time and place, and with colourful detail brings us intimately into a world of haying and spruce beer, of seal meat and beaver pelts: a world where the first governor of Newfoundland to die in office is sent back to England preserved in “a large puncheon of rum”.Years later, when the Peytons’ second expedition to the Beothuks' winter camp leads to the kidnapping of an Indian woman and a murder, Buchan returns to investigate. As the officer attempts to uncover what really happened on Red Indian Lake, the delicate web of allegiance, obligation and debt that holds together the Peyton household and the community of settlers on the northeast shore slowly unravels. The interwoven histories of English and French, Mi’kmaq and Beothuk, are slowly unearthed, as the story culminates with a growing sense of loss — the characters’ private regrets echoed in the tragic loss of an entire people. An enthralling story of passion and suspense, River Thieves captures both the vast sweep of history and the intimate lives of a deeply emotional and complex cast of characters caught in its wake. Many historical events, which provided inspiration for the novel, took place around where Crummey grew up. There was a family of Peytons in the Bay of Exploits who were intimately involved in the fate of the Beothuk, John the Elder known as a ‘great Indian killer’ and his son, John the Younger, attempting to establish friendly contact. “What set of circumstances would account for this difference?” asked Crummey. “How would the two men relate to one another? What would the motivations be for their particular actions? As soon as a writer begins answering these sorts of questions in any definitive way, the writing becomes fiction.” Though faithful to historical record in many details, he imagined ways in which the characters might participate more fully in each other’s story. “Of course a different writer, or even myself at a different time in my life, would have imagined a different world of characters and events, a radically different picture.”
    • 4/5
      River Thieves' plot is based around the divisions and conflicts between the British white settlers and the native Beothuk aboriginal inhabitants of Newfoundland, or "red Indians" as the Settlers referred to them as. The Governor of Newfoundland enlists a morally conscientious young Naval officer to head up a winter expedition to demonstrate peace and fellowship with the Beothuk, and he in turn enlists the help of a number of reluctant local white settlers to act as guides up the frozen lake. The settlers, having historically experienced bloodshed and thievery with the Beothuk, share little of the officer's appetite for reconciliation, and as the years pass the officer becomes increasingly entwined in their lives as he takes on the mantle of justice for the native settlers.As with any good novel, the real magic lies in the sub-plots revolving around the main characters, and the development of these secrets into interconnecting threads. Crummey develops strong characters and evocative landscapes, and if you enjoy novels set in the days of the early North American settlers this will surely be a winner. There was a familiarity to this novel, and I think many other novelists have also successfully written this type of book, but it was enjoyable nonetheless (although perhaps slightly longer than it needed to be). I just wish he had left out the two or three pages of sex he weaved in, which definitely would be contenders for the Bad Sex in Literature Award. It seemed out of keeping with the rest of the novel and felt uncomfortably cringey - like reading an account of your parents' sex life (sorry to create any unwanted mental images there, folks).3.5 stars - excellently written and a fabulous plot, but for some reason I laboured over this a bit at times. I think this was more a reflection of my reading mood rather than the novel, so don't let my score put you off.
    • 5/5
      The Beothuk “Red” Indians were the aboriginal people of the island of Newfoundland. With the introduction of both French and English settlements, the Beothuk found themselves isolated and being squeezed out of their land, especially their access to fishing and hunting grounds. They were eventually reduced to a small refugee population living along the Exploits River and ultimately the Beothuk became extinct, with the last known known Indian dying in St. John’s, Newfoundland in 1829. It is this little known story of an aboriginal people which is the backbone of Michael Crummey’s novel, River Thieves. Inspired by the Beothuks and a well known English fisherman and hunter by the name of John Peyton (who was reputed to be brutal in his persecution of the Beothuk), Crummey has crafted a novel rich in the history of Newfoundland.Set in the early part of the nineteenth century, River Thieves opens with naval officer David Buchan arriving in the Bay of Exploits on orders to establish friendly contact with the “Red Indians.” But he cannot do so without the assistance of the locals – a rough, independent group of trappers and fisherman who live in small cabins along the coast and the Exploits River. John Peyton Sr. is living with his son, John Jr., and a young woman named Cassie Jure who he has employed as a house servant and tutor for his son. He is a surly man who has a strong reputation for not tolerating the ongoing thefts perpetrated by the aboriginal peoples…and it is he who David Buchan approaches for help. But there are many secrets in this small community – allegiances and alliances, old recriminations, buried crimes, and relationships which are not always as they seem.Crummey advances his novel through the eyes of the characters who include both Peytons, the shadowed Cassie, an Irishman with a questionable past and his native wife, and a captured Indian woman by the name of Mary. The harsh environs of Newfoundland feels like another character in this novel about love, loss, and regret.The theme of regret is strong … all the characters make decisions at some point which cause them to regret their actions. Even John Peyton Sr., who is perhaps the character who is hardest to like, finds himself regretting his behavior toward the Indians. It is this theme of regret which makes this novel a bit melancholy. And perhaps that is appropriate since it is a book which explores the historical atrocity of an extermination of a people.Crummey uses language and the naming of things as a way of defining the contrast between the native culture and that of the English colonists. And ultimately to symbolize the loss of an entire people. Perhaps the most poignant and poetic part of the book is in the prelude:Whashwitt, bear; Kosweet, caribou; Dogajavick, fox. Shabothoobet, trap. The vocabularies a kind of taxidermy, words that were once muscle and sinew preserved in these single wooden postures. Three hundred nouns, a handful of unconjugated verbs, to kiss, to run, to fall, to kill. At the edge of a story that circles and circles their own death, they stand dumbly pointing. Only the land is still there. – from River Thieves.I read Crummey’s amazing novel, Galore, in 2011 and it made my short list of best books read that year (read my review). Although I liked that novel a bit more than this one, River Thieves did not disappoint me. Crummey’s eye to detail, his terrific characters, and his ability to tell a story that captures place and history had me engrossed in this novel. Readers who love historical fiction will want to pick up a copy of this book.Highly recommended.River Thieves (2001) became a Canadian bestseller, winning the Thomas Head Raddall Award, the Winterset Award for Excellence in Newfoundland Writing, and the Atlantic Independent Booksellers’ Choice Award. It was also shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Books in Canada First Novel Award, and was long-listed for the IMPAC Award.
    • 4/5
      Canadian poet and novelist Michael Crummey was born in Buchans, Newfoundland, a town that was presumably named for David Buchan, the English naval officer who is one of the main characters in his 2001 historical novel, "River Thieves."Early in the 19th century, Buchan tried to make peaceful contact with the small and illusive Beothuk tribe, also known as the "Red Indians," not in reference to their skin color but to their custom of covering their skin with reddish mud. Up to then, contact between white settlers and the Beothuk had been rare and, when it did happen, it usually ended in bloodshed. The Indians liked to steal things from the settlers, and the settlers responded with violence.The novel's main characters are John Peyton Senior, his grown son John Peyton Junior and Cassie, a woman who had been hired as a teenager to teach John Junior how to read and had stayed on as a housekeeper. As the boy reaches manhood, he falls in love with the older woman, but before he can make his feelings known he concludes she is his father's lover and so remains quiet.Buchan, meanwhile, has enlisted the aid of the Peytons in his attempts to contact the Beothuk, and he is a frequent visitor at their cabin. The younger Peyton leads an expedition to try to recover stolen goods from the Indians, but two members of the tribe are killed in the process and a young woman is kidnapped and taken back to the Peyton cabin.Mary, as she is called, gradually learns a little English and, in time, shows little interest in returning to her dying tribe. Buchan, however, is determined to take her back and to find justice for the Beothuk men killed by members of the Peyton party."River Thieves" is a fascinating story that sticks close to the historical facts. The novel was a bestseller in Canada, which is where I bought my copy several years ago, but it never found many readers in this country. That is too bad.
    • 4/5
      A wonderful work of historical fiction. This book tell the story of recent immigrants to Newfoundland around the time of the end of the Beothuks Interesting, vivid, a great story.