The River is Rising: Tough Book but One of 2025's Best

 

 

 

 

The River is Waiting (2025)

By Wally Lamb

Simon and Schuster, 480 pages.

★★★★★

 

Some of the reviews I’ve read of The River is Waiting, the newest novel from Wally Lamb, raised my hackles. Lamb is a wonderful writer, but some readers trashed it for being too sad and using bad language. Sheesh! Just because a book covers a tough subject, doesn’t make it a lousy book. Like Lamb’s anti-hero, sometimes people make dumb choices, especially when under great stress. Horrible things can and do happen in life. Plus, it’s pretty hard to avoid unpleasantness and swears in a novel whose major setting is prison. So here’s some advice: If you are overly sensitive, something awful happens near the beginning of the book. If you can’t handle it, stop immediately and stay off the review forums! All you’ll miss is one of best books of 2025, even if it is one of saddest.

 

Corby Ledbetter seemingly had it all: a nice home, a good-paying job, a loving wife named Emily, and two-year-old twins Maisie and Niko. Then he lost his job, stood to lose his house, and was under so much stress that he began drinking and mixing drugs with booze. Under the influence of alcohol he had an accident in which a death occurred. In Connecticut law, a DUI resulting in a death is a second-degree murder charge. Although Corby got sober, went to AA, and underwent counseling with Dr. Patel, who documented his progress at sentencing, the usual verdict is six years in prison. A semi-sympathetic judge gave him three. In most states, anything over two years means incarceration in a state penitentiary, not a county lockup. Corby was cuffed and taken to the Yates Correctional Institution along the banks of the Wequonnoc River. (Both are fictional.)

 

This is a novel about what can be forgiven, what can’t be, guilt, reconciliation, survival, small kindnesses, violence, injustice, and tragedy. Lamb is known for his attention to detail, and interior character-centered books that probe thoughts and emotions. Corby is wrecked by grief, but wishes to be a better husband and father. In the beginning of the book he is an egoistic and unreliable narrator. It is to Lamb’s credit that he makes Corby into a believable reliable narrator, yet one who retains edges and anger. He’s a liberal who is forced to put his belief in racial equality into concrete action. He learns early on that no one in the prison is impressed by his intellect or his middle-class status; survival means floating above white and black gangs without dissing either of them. He also lucks out in that a gay cellmate named Manny shows him how things work on the inside, but respects Corby’s heterosexuality.

 

Lamb does another delicate balancing act by not sugarcoating prison violence, but allowing the possibility of being a decent person. Corby is deeply depressed. How not?  Negativity and acting out are as rife in prison as the food is disgusting. When Corby gets into trouble, it’s usually because he can’t shut off his injustice sensors, though it would be in his self-interest to do so. When an obviously psychologically damaged young man named Solomon is sent to Yates instead of a psychiatric unit, Corby tries to get sadistic guards Piccardy and Anselmo to lay off the “kid.” He even reports them. Bad move! Now they hate Corby even more than they enjoy picking on Solomon. Corby learns the hard way that prisoners have no rights and that he can’t trust the Yates psychologist.

 

The Wequonnoc River is a character in its own right. Inmates can hear it from their cells and, when on outside work detail, can catch glimpses of it. Corby even manages to walk down to it when the guards aren’t looking and secures a white “lucky stone” that he occasionally shares when another inmate needs comfort. The river represents the continuous flow of history, lives, and emotions. Corby adjusts to prison, but never allows himself to give up his yearning to be free or to repair his marriage. His best moments come when he gets to work in the library with Mrs. Millman, and when his art work attracts notice and he gets to paint a mural that wins accolades from both inmates and state officials.  But don’t wait for a happy ending. Lamb settles for a tragically ironic one that stings because it seems so utterly real.

 

 

Rob Weir