Details
Synopsis
The Nikawa, or "river horse," is the boat on which William Least Heat-Moon crossed the United States, from New York to Oregon in 1995. This is his third book on his American travels, following the enormously successful BLUE HIGHWAYS, and PRAIRYERTH.
| Size | | Length: | 506 pages | | Height: | 9.8 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.8 in | | Weight: | 29.6 oz |
Publisher's Notes
First Line: "If you want the specifications: she was made of fiberglass laminate over an end-grain balsa core two inches thick, with a flat hull aft a V-shaped bow; just under twenty-two feel long and about eight in beam; approximately 700 pounds empty, with an eight-inch minimum draft and 30 inches when motored and loaded; called a C-Dory and built near Seattle in January 1995."
Industry Reviews
"Whatever Heat-Moon's passion for maps and the lands they conceal, one will always catch him here courting the language, rolling the evocative place names into musical lists, teasing the reader with rare and endangered words....[He] is at his descriptive best when he is peering neither fore nor aft but over the gunwales into the water that draws him toward the setting sun....[T]here were stretches of water east of the Mississippi where I wished the skipper had slowed down and spent more shore time exploring funky or historic places....Still once the Nikawa gets beyond the 100th meridian...there the writer warms quickly to the legends and the lay of the land."
Washington Post Book World - John Mitchell (11/07/1999)
"At times, the stories are so good and coincidences so convenient that readers may wonder if the author is making them up. But Least Heat-Moon, who lives in Columbia, Mo., is a wonderfully descriptive and digressive writer."
USA Today - Bob Minzesheimer (12/02/1999)
"It is the finest American book I have read for years....[It] is a love poem to capture the heart of America...."
Literary Review - Gavin Esler (03/20/2000)
"RIVER-HORSE is a rich account of [his] journey, Heat-Moon proving in equal measure an expert guide, garrulous raconteur and erudite cultural historian….[A] powerful testimon[y] to Americans' lingering affinity for nature in the wilder states of the USA and with those who live within the limits of the land."
Times Literary Supplement - Martin Padget (06/09/2000)
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