Details
Synopsis
Leila Murray is the night clerk at the Swan Motel. She married the boy who got her pregnant in high school, but now, sterile from the ensuing abortion, she takes up petty prostitution for $60 a trick, and saves her money--for what, she's not sure. She meets Gary, who manipulates Leila into working for him and servicing his friends. In the process, memories of her childhood begin to surface: memories of her mother, who was violently slain by Leila's uncle; of the men in Leila's life who seduced, raped, or otherwise took advantage of her; and of her father, who died from a heart attack. In one awful episode, she is bound and held captive in a dark room while Gary's friends take their turns with her. Slowly, Leila realizes why she's been saving that money.
| Size | | Length: | 271 pages | | Height: | 8.5 in | | Width: | 6.0 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 16.0 oz |
Industry Reviews
"'Suspicious River' is Laura Kasischke's first novel (she is also a published poet), but it is written with the skill of an old hand, though not with skill only. The novel's past and present spiral around and condition each other like the strands of a double helix. Chains of imagery, visual, olfactory, and tactile, link scenes in unexpected ways. The peripheral characters, the physical setting, the claustrophobic horrors of American small-town life are evoked with austere precision. Leila's case got to me, in spite of my resistance to all it reveals of what I don't want to face in human nature, for Ms. Kasischke's characters are all too convincing. I truly and immensely admire this novel, but I am not sure I like it."
New York Times Book Review - George Stade (05/05/1996)
"...[L]uscious, disjointed images pile upon one another until the novel is teeming with phrases--looping, frenzied words, breathlessly pounding toward a frozen white winter and the story's inexorable conclusion. But they illustrate Kasischke's deftness. She smudges the boundaries between sane and insane with her clipped, beautiful vision."
Nation - Molly E. Rauch (04/22/1996)
"'Suspicious River' is an extremely powerful debut, because Leila's story feels emblematic of those told by so many others. Their spirits are an almost intangible presence throughout this beautiful, troubling novel."
Los Angeles Times Book Review - Erika Taylor (08/04/1996)
"[A] scary, hypnotic first novel....It is worth noting that Kasischke is a published poet. She has a poet's ear for language....'Suspicious River' is a bleakly compelling tale of sexual passion and violence, but it's lifted into something more by its prose."
Literary Review - Kate Hubbard (01/19/1997)
"...[A] chilling but elegant first novel by poet Kasischke....Lyrical, suspenseful, rich in imagery--and grim. Those who like Joyce Carol Oates will love this one."
Gregerson
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