I’m always
cautious of historical novels that have any form of the word “romance” anywhere
in their descriptions, because things can turn real slutty real fast. I picked
it up this summer because, like I mentioned about John Banville’s The Sea,
I’m in what seems like a never-ending quest to read the books that are sitting unread
on my bookshelf. Who could resist a World War I era story set at Niagara
Falls? If nothing else, the book seemed like it would be a light,
summer read.
Instead
of a light summer read, though, I found a story with an overwhelming theme of
loss. Our heroine, Bess, is seventeen when her father loses his well-paying job
at a power company that generates power from the flow of the river racing over
the falls. This sets in motion a series of unfortunate events and, as such,
Bess needs to makes the standard choices regarding love and independence and
deals with—you guessed it—loss. I’ve already covered the loss of employment and
the loss of money, but there is loss of family members and dealing with death, loss
of innocence as a generation of young men goes off to war, loss of friendship,
loss of faith, and, the most unique element of the story, loss of the natural
river flow as industrial companies siphon off water for their operations. This
is where the romance comes in: as it happens, Bess marries the strong, hunky
Riverman, who is the stuff of legends and whose grandfather was the original
stuff of legends, because of their ability to read the river, sense shifts in
the wind that causes ice bridges to melt, and knows just how to fish the dead
bodies (loss again!) drowned in the falls and swirling around the whirlpools and
eddies. See what I mean about being a little heavy for a summer read? In any
case, Bess had just enough moxy to keep me picking up the book, and the story
certainly got me thinking of my own family visits to Niagara Falls, and I can
certainly say I’m glad the Falls still inspire a sense
of wonder in us.
Buchanan, Cathy Marie. The Day the Falls Stood Still. New York: Voice / Hyperion, 2009.
