Fathers and sons mend wounds, seek common ground in ‘Peace Like a River’

Thom is a precocious teenager who, despite his innocence, has the vocabulary and insight of someone much older. He may or may not be on the spectrum, but then, “Aren’t we all?” Elwin says to the boy’s mother, Roma.

Elwin is a study in passivity. He’s like a piece of flotsam drifting aimlessly in the current, bouncing off rocks and shifting direction only in reaction to obstacles in his path. The death of a childhood friend seems to have stunted his ability to move on with his life or connect with others.

Credit: Regal House Publishing

Credit: Regal House Publishing

When the novel opens, father and son are driving to Kingstree, where Elwin grew up, summoned by Linda, the girlfriend of Elwin’s estranged father, who is dying. The next couple of days are spent in the Lowcountry alternating between the rundown Kingstree Inn motel, where Thom meets Lily, his first crush, and a rundown shack on the Black River, where the “Old Man” lives and soon dies.

Cut from the same reticent cloth, Elwin and the Old Man spare few words as they attempt to hash out their complicated relationship. Although it goes unsaid, their mutual love of Thom provides common ground as they witness the child’s budding transition from boy to man. Thom’s frank, chatty nature provides a welcome antidote to the older men’s propensity for silence. Orbiting the men and boy like moons around a planet are the women who love them — Linda, Lily and Roma, who unexpectedly shows up.

As the title implies, the river figures prominently. Journeys are undertaken, dangerous predicaments are encountered and hard lessons are learned. It’s notable that the Black River appears sluggish and impenetrable from above, but the current runs swift just below the surface.

A complicating factor arrives in the form of Ruby Floyd, Kingstree’s oafish undertaker with terrible people skills who runs a real estate business on the side. She’s got her eye on the Old Man’s riverfront property and hounds Elwin to name his price. Despite her annoying presence, she drops a bit of wisdom from time to time.

“Dying does strange things to the living,” she tells Elwin. “It never makes sense. Somebody is suddenly gone, and the ones left behind start doing things and saying things that feel brand new. It’s weird physics. Every death is an action, and all we can do is create a reaction.”

That’s something Elwin knows a thing or two about. And true to form, the Old Man’s death sets into motion reactions Elwin could have never seen coming. In the end, as the Old Man’s survivors figure out what their new normal will look like, Elwin comes to realize that when it comes to human connections, “a sense of loss is a tie that binds us all together.”

A Cappella Books presents Gould in conversation with author Julia Franks Sept. 7. For details go to acappellabooks.com.

Suzanne Van Atten is a book critic and contributing editor to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She can be reached at Suzanne.VanAtten@ajc.com.