Corby Ledbetter is in trouble. <\/p>\n
Book Review: Wally Lamb explores human cruelty and grace in prison with `The River is Waiting’<\/p>\n
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In Wally Lamb\u2019s new novel, \u201cThe River Is Waiting,\u201d Corby has lost his job as a commercial artist and has developed a secret addiction to alcohol and pills, setting him on a dangerous path that leads to an unfathomable tragedy. <\/p>\n
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Corby starts staying at home during the day with his twin toddlers \u2014 one boy and one girl \u2014 while his wife works as the family\u2019s sole breadwinner. Lying to his spouse that he\u2019s looking for a job, he starts his mornings drinking hard liquor mixed with his prescription pills for anxiety, leaving him incapable of properly caring for the children he loves. <\/p>\n
A tragic mix up one morning results in the death of Corby\u2019s young son when he accidentally drives over the boy in their driveway. Devastated by the loss of little Niko, Corby now also faces a three-year prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter. <\/p>\n
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\u201cThe River Is Waiting\u201d is Lamb\u2019s first novel in nine years and a new chance to explore human imperfection as he did in earlier best-selling novels that included \u201cShe\u2019s Come Undone,\u201d about an obese adolescent girl awash in depression, and \u201cI Know This Much Is True,\u201d the story of a man fighting to protect his paranoid schizophrenic twin brother. Oprah Winfrey announced Tuesday that she picked \u201cThe River Is Waiting\u201d for her book club, the third time she\u2019s selected a Lamb book. <\/p>\n
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\u201cThe River Is Waiting\u201d is Lamb\u2019s first novel in nine years and a new chance to explore human imperfection as he did in earlier best-selling novels that included \u201cShe\u2019s Come Undone,\u201d about an obese adolescent girl awash in depression, and \u201cI Know This Much Is True,\u201d the story of a man fighting to protect his paranoid schizophrenic twin brother. Oprah Winfrey announced Tuesday that she picked \u201cThe River Is Waiting\u201d for her book club, the third time she\u2019s selected a Lamb book. <\/p>\n
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Almost all the action in Lamb\u2019s latest book plays out in prison, an ideal setting to examine the worst and best of humanity. The author taught writing workshops for incarcerated women over two decades, an experience that has helped him to draw a vivid picture of life behind bars, with all its indignities and a few acts of grace. <\/p>\n
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Almost all the action in Lamb\u2019s latest book plays out in prison, an ideal setting to examine the worst and best of humanity. The author taught writing workshops for incarcerated women over two decades, an experience that has helped him to draw a vivid picture of life behind bars, with all its indignities and a few acts of grace. <\/p>\n
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While Corby is tormented by two excessively cruel guards, he also befriends the prison librarian, who shares book recommendations and homemade cookies with inmates who stop by. She even encourages him to paint a mural on the library wall. Several other prisoners also become friends, including a kind cellmate who looks out for him. Corby later tries to look out for someone else \u2014 a severely troubled young inmate who shouldn\u2019t have been locked up with hardened criminals. <\/p>\n
During his imprisonment, Corby worries about whether his beloved wife, Emily, and their daughter, Maisie, can ever forgive him. But the experience hasn\u2019t left him especially enlightened. <\/p>\n
At the end, Corby remains mostly a self-centered guy. He\u2019s no hero and there\u2019s no big epiphany. Like the protagonists in Lamb\u2019s earlier novels, he is utterly human, failings and all. <\/p>\n
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book reviews: \/hub\/book-reviews <\/p>\n
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0 <\/p>\n {{^userSubscribed}}<\/p>\n {{^usCountry}}<\/p>\n {{\/usCountry}} {{\/usCountry}}<\/p>\n {{\/userSubscribed}}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Corby Ledbetter is in trouble. Book Review: Wally Lamb explores human cruelty and grace in prison with `The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,71857,77,71859,18939,71858,16,15,70490],"class_list":{"0":"post-173235","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-corby-ledbetter","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-involuntary-manslaughter","12":"tag-prison","13":"tag-the-river-is-waiting","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wally-lamb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114659713654532584","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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