Riverman

‘This is a beautifully told and near-mythical tale of one man’s quest to find peace through communion with nature, and through perpetual motion. My heart was deeply stirred by Riverman, and by Ben McGrath’s brilliant, clear, and humane storytelling. This one will stay with me for a long time’ Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

‘Riverman is as miraculous and hopeful as its protagonist, the Zelig of America’s waterways, Dick Conant. It’s a great book for people like me, who read Into the Wild but have shed our self-destructive wanderlust and settled into middle age. This book will make you want to buy a canoe and spend less time on Instagram’ Emma Straub, bestselling author of All Adults Here

‘McGrath’s reconstruction of Dick Conant’s tangled career and yearning soul is so meticulous, so obsessive, that Conant comes to life on the page as vividly as any character in American literature. Conant wanted his story told. Here it is, in all its pathos and sheer unlikeliness. You will never see rivers and the towns on their banks the same way after reading Riverman. Ditto, I predict, for expansive, raggedy strangers’ William Finnegan, bestselling author of Pulitzer Prize winner Barbarian Days

‘This quietly profound book belongs on the shelf next to Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild’ New York Times

‘Superb … McGrath captures his subject with warmth and humour’ Wall Street Journal

‘Captivating … A paean to eccentricity and endurance and a study of a life that changed the chronicler’s own perceptions … A memorable and intoxicating exploration of what we make of those who reinvent themselves’ Kirkus, starred review

In the vein of classics by Twain and Thoreau, and, more recently, Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, Jon Krakauer’s Into The Wild and Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel, Riverman aims to be a classic tale of Americans confronting nature. The book is based on an article Ben wrote for the New Yorker, which received wide critical acclaim.