The Lake, the River & the Other Lake
A Novel
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
The resort town of Weneshkeen, nestled along Michigan’s Gold Coast, has become a complex melting pot: townies and old timers mix with ritzy summer folk, migrant cherry pickers, wily river guides, and a few Ojibwe Indians. As the summer blooms, these lives mingle in surprising ways–a lifelong resident and Vietnam Vet pursues the take-no-guff deputy sheriff, while plotting revenge against the jet-skiers polluting his beloved lake; a summer kid from downstate stumbles into a romance with the sexiest rich girl in town; the town’s retired reverend discovers the Internet and a new friend in his computer tutor. A resonant social comedy with richly-drawn characters and quirky charm, The Lake, the River & the Other Lake welcomes you into a world that you may never want to leave.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The town of Weneshkeen, Mich., on Lake Michigan's Gold Coast, may be little, but a heck of a lot goes on there. This smart, punchy first novel is a smalltown soap opera, burning and churning through the summer of 2001. Amick develops a group of disparate characters, each one with a dilemma to solve or an axe to grind, and then passes the story line from one to the next in a game of literary tag. The novel's primary force is Roger Drinkwater, a no-nonsense Ojibwe Indian who served in Vietnam and coaches the local high school swim team. The calm of his peaceful lakeside home has been shattered by screeching jet skis driven by obnoxious young Fudgies (slang for tourists), and he vows to use his military training to try and silence the mechanized nuisance. Amick peppers his plot with other vexed individuals, including a recently retired minister grappling with an Internet porn addiction and a bigoted orchard owner whose son and daughter betray him by choosing foreign mates. At the start, the novel feels a bit quaint, but it quickly develops a sharp edge. Bitterly comic and surprisingly meaty, this roiling tale of passion, anger, regret and lust is dark fun for the Garrison Keillor demographic. 7-city author tour.
