Product Description

The long-awaited novel by the author of the bestselling Emperor of the Air is a story of astounding power and sensibility. Lawrence and Edward are two brothers who haven't seen each other in ten years. Lawrence--a drifter, a gambler, a man of questionable character--appears on the cautious Edward's doorstep, challenging his beliefs and forcing him to recall their tumultuous childhood and uncover a long-buried story of monstrous betrayal.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5202315 in Books
• Published on: 1991-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 222 pages

From Publishers Weekly
This eloquent story of two men destined to become "good brother" and "bad brother" is an ambitious but ultimately disappointing novel by the author of the acclaimed 1988 collection Emperor of the Air. Edward, a successful California ophthalmologist, finds a bum on his doorstep one morning, only to realize that it's his estranged brother Lawrence, whose life has gone steadily downhill. Edward manages to get Lawrence out of town, but the meeting has been an overdue awakening for Edward, and the remainder of the story consists of his examination of their shared past, written in a first-person narrative told to a "you" who is Lawrence. "Always do what you're afraid of," Lawrence had advised Edward when they were growing up in Wisconsin. Lawrence got into fights, seduced girls, stole, caused destruction. Edward was studious, active in the community. Each played the part assigned, it seemed by their mother, although Edward now thinks that Lawrence had a secret purpose in behaving as he did. The revelations of Edward's melancholy, truth-seeking exploration may lead to a rapprochement. Along the way, confusion about what happened in the ambiguous past, betrayals and the chaos of their shared history are unfurled with precision and grace. But Canin's attempt to get inside Edward's psyche results in a flattened tone and lack of passion, perhaps intended to provoke the reader into making his own judgment about which brother is good and which is evil. The effect, however, is to distance the reader too thoroughly; the characters' interior landscapes are bleak and the narrative lacks dramatic momentum. In the end, this promising novel is itself somewhat flat and disaffecting. $100,000 ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Successful, self-contained Ed, who has a lovely wife, a lovely child, and the lovely, well-appointed home due a doctor, opens the door one day to find a ragged stranger on his doorstep. The stranger turns out to be his older brother, Lawrence, whom he has not seen for years. This unexpected visit prompts Ed to reconsider his childhood, dominated by the rebellious Lawrence, who fights, steals, and, after briefly reforming, shocks the town with a stunning act of violence. As Ed reminisces, Lawrence emerges as complex and thoughtful, a smart boy who encouraged Ed's interest in science and rebelled simply because it was the role assigned him by an anxious mother and a worshipful younger brother who turns out to be a bit duplicitous himself. Canin, author of the much-praised short story collection Emperor of the Air ( LJ 2/1/88), succeeds in creating believable and involving characters in his first novel. If his story structure occasionally seems too pat, his evocative prose occasionally in need of more burnishing, he has produced an affecting work. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/91.
- Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
In track, champion sprinters know better than immediately to train next for the mile and longer. Not in the book world. Canin's fluent, relaxed, and often stunning way with the short story (Emperor of the Air) is all but erased in this pulseless attempt at a novel. Edward Sellers is a Bay Area ophthalmologist, with wife and son and pool and Toyota Land Cruiser, whose Ralph Lauren-like life- -all modulation, russets, and beiges--is threatened when his older brother Lawrence, a loser with a malformed hand and outlaw charisma, shows up at his door, obviously on the run from trouble. Lawrence is soon put on a bus, dispatched--the novel then goes into reverse to describe the fatherless family life of the Sellers boys as they're growing up in Blue River, Wisconsin. Lawrence is a fact- collector, a danger-seeker, a shadowy exemplar to his younger brother Edward; but mysterious pregnancies and arsons soon assemble as an unmistakably ruinous path to Lawrence's door. Edward is moved to tell someone about it--and the havoc of moral ambiguity becomes the book's ultimate theme. It's a theme very late arrived at, though. Most of the story is milky recollection, in which no character other than Lawrence seems palpable or charged. Clich‚ veins the prose (``...the curse of your character and the seed of your downfall, I now think, was your inability to forget the insults and petty defeats of your life''), and is not helped by Canin's decision to write in a first person that's always addressing Lawrence, as in a long letter. It gives the book a whispered, ultimately lethargic tone, muscle-less. Disappointing. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Cry Me a Blue River.
I picked up "Blue River" after breezing through two delightful reads, "Emperor of the Air" and "The Palace Thief" both by Canin. I recommend reading every one of the short stories in each of these two volumes.

"Tedious." This word kept popping into my head while I labored into "Blue River." I thought it was me. Surely this story would improve and flower into a marvelous and richly colorful Ethan Canin story. 75 pages, 100 pages, 150 pages. Would this ever develop into something readable? Should I give up?

I didn't. And I had to laugh at all the other reviews here on Amazon.com "Tedious" "The shortest book I never finished." Naturally. They are all correct. Believe the negative reviews.

"Blue River" is a hugely disappointing, cliche-filled, seemingly unedited, overly stylistic diatribe that is boring. Not very far along in the book, the protagonist yuppie eye surgeon is "chasing his demons" and daring to drive through Pacific Coast Highway switchback turns with his eyes shut late at night. Uh-huh. Most assuredly, you too will root for a good car crash. No such luck, however, and the reader is taken back through an awful Cain and Abel coming-of-age saga set in Blue River, Wisconsin high above the banks of the Mississippi. The worst part is that it is written in this horrific style of a letter from the younger, angst-laden yuppie brother to the older miscreant brother. "Lawrence, you didn't know I knew that you knew" sort of technique. Ugggh. Spare us.

It's a shame this book turned out so badly because Ethan Canin is a very talented writer. I have confidence this was an early set back in a very promising career, and I look forward to finding the next Canin novel in my public library.

Amazing People Don't Like This
Ethan Canin is one of my favorite modern novelists. That being said, I feel his books, while still good, have gotten progressively less interesting as he has gotten older. The first two stories in the Palace Thief are my favorite - along with Blue River.

Just the way Canin emotes the feelings created by the bonds of his characters in this book truly reveal how it feels to be a young man, what traits are revered by young men, what is found in oneself, and what is lost.

I don't know...not sure what there is here NOT to like.

Examining a boring life through a high-powered microscope.
First, let me state that I have been impressed by all the Canin I have read prior to starting "Blue River." The problem with this novel isn't that it follows pattern similar to Canin's other works, most notably "For Kings and Planets," a far more mature novel, but that the protagonist is very hard to empathize with. A successful California optimologist, the protagonist spends the too much of the narrative defending his materialism. When he's not bothering with that, he's repeatly over-describing his less successful brother (After the first few times, I understood that the brother was violent and troubled during high school). There's a good story here, but it's trapped under a poor, plodding narrative.