On the River Styx

by Peter Matthiessen

Since the 1950s Peter Matthiessen has written fiction and nonfiction of elemental power and moral vision, including the acclaimed novels At Play in the Fields of the Lord and Far Tortuga and works of naturalism and exploration like the National Book Award-winning The Snow Leopard.This stunning collection of short stories, available for the first time in paperback, spans more than three decades of writing by one of the most acclaimed literary voices of our time.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, American, American Fiction, Collections, Anthologies, Literature

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Peter Matthiessen is the author of more than thirty books and the only writer to win the National Book Award for both non-fiction (The Snow Leopard, in two categories, in 1979 and 1980) and fiction (Shadow Country, in 2008). A co-founder of The Paris Review and a world-renowned naturalist, explorer and activist, he died in April 2014.

Reviews

[Daren · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book publishes ten short stories, mostly set in the United States, written over the span of his career.
There is an overall theme of darkness and violence, spilling into race (those who prefer not to read stories in which a high proportion of characters are referred to as nigger, should probably veer away from this). There is beauty in the bleakness, there is power in the writing, however, as is often the case in short story collections, there is an element of hit and miss.
Personally with short stories I have less tolerance for a story that doesn't strike a chord for me, than with a full novel. In some cases I perhaps lose the thread of the story, and I don't struggle too hard to pick it up again - perhaps this is the reduced investment in a short story.
From the few reviews of this book I looked over, it seems everyone has a favourite story in this collection, and they are all different. Some readers chose the stories I didn't enjoy.

There were a couple that stood out for me. One was 'Travelin Man', the story of an escaped convict trying to survive in a wilderness area, where he crosses paths with, and becomes the prey of a hunter. It is a cat & mouse type tale, with both trying to outwit each other, and lay a trap to outsmart their opponent.

The other was 'Midnight Turning Gray', a story in a mental asylum, where an occupational therapist befriends one of the inmates, and takes up a fight to seek his freedom, considering that he didn't belong in there. This story runs the line of inconvenience of the few to protect the many and a bit of not worth the risk of freeing him.

As well as these two stories, which where over 4 star, there were 4 more which were good, at 3 stars, and the balance were just ok, or I didn't pick up the point of.

Overall balances out at 3 stars.

[Casey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of Peter Matthiessen's short fiction is presented in chronological order according to publication date. The themes of race relations, the South, and violence loop through and around each short story like an uncoiling snake felt slipping over one's bare ankle. You know its there, you feel lit, you can even see it, but you tell yourself you can't see it because if you see it, you'll never be able to see anything except for that with which we are uncomfortable. But like the snake rasping over our anklebone, once felt, it can never be unfelt. Matthiessen's talent for writing behavioral truth whether between a man, his wife, and a snapping turtle, or between black and white, is staggering and exquisite.

For the first five stories, I stood in slack jawed awe. I danced the sweaty dance of broken glass rapture. I wore the open socket pealed back grin of desert skulls and asylum madness. Matthiessen could have asked me to step off a bridge within those first five stories and I would have done so, gladly. Lunacy via literary ecstasy? Perhaps, perhaps. I can't explain it better. Matthiessen made magic in those first five. And then, the magic went away. The final five in this collection are okay, one or two is potentially good, but they lacked that living wonder that whisked me to that place of other, delights so wicked, I shiver now to think.

I'm curious to see what Matthiessen's more recent work is like, since his later writing within this collection lost steam.

I'm looking forward to reading Shadow Country and In Paradise.

[Ben Thurley · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is not to love about Matthiessen's writing? These ten beautiful, provocative (and it must be said fairly bleak and menacing) stories written over about three decades show his development as a writer and are the perfect introduction.

Set largely on the margins in landscapes of raw beauty and terrible power they are also stunning explorations of race relations and social power in the US of decades gone by. In several of the stories lives are literally on the line while in other stories moral codes and power relations are uncovered and the cracks revealed – more often than not – quickly papered over again.

Some stories, such as "Wolves of Aguila" achieve a startling mythical resonance. The longest of the stories (and last in the collection) is also the best, "Lumumba Lives". It is a subtle and disturbing account of a man, Henry Harkness, returning to his wealthy family's estate in New York State in search of an unfragmented self or some meaning and connection with home beyond violence after years of working for (it is implied) the CIA in Africa. His departed father had referred to him as a "moral dead man" and he is indeed antisocial, amoral and even perhaps breaking down in a dissociative episode as he confronts, alienates and runs from his neighbours, a group of black fishermen and even the estate agent who sells him back part of his family's estate. Finally, he is left a terrified and rage-filled figure hiding from an imagined assailant, "in the autumn garden, cooling his forehead on the night-blue metal, in the haunted sunlight, in the dread of home."

Too good.

[Jeanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been wanting to read Matthiessen for sometime so picked up his short stories at the library, since it was the only book of his available. The reviews warned of dark depressing themes, which they were, so with the bleak and often disturbing content, this was probably not the best introduction to M. The author's note conveyed the fact that the stories spanned close to forty years of his writing life. Guess I'd better try one of his more popular works before passing judgment.

[Old Man JP · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic collection of short stories by one of the finest writers Ive had the pleasure to read.

[Robert Morgan Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection vibed me heavy as I held it in my hand. Master writer and good to the last letter of the last word. Much to emulate here. The final story, Lumumba Lives, is an absolute masterpiece.

[David Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the River Styx and Other Stories by Peter Matthiessen (Random House 1989) (813.54) (3641).

Peter Matthiessen is one of my favorite authors. His writings as a naturalist are superb nonfiction. As for fiction, he wrote my favorite novel of all time (Shadow Country). He is also one of the best short story authors ever, as On the River Styx and Other Stories clearly demonstrates.

This volume consists of ten short stories selected by the author. Each of these is meticulously crafted. Nobody creates a tone and a mood as well as Matthiessen; this is a book where the stories invoke moods like fever dreams. I was so completely immersed in Matthiessen’s short story world that I cannot select a favorite from this book’s ten outstanding selections.

Here are brief summaries of these tales:

“Sadie” is about a man who has traveled to a South Georgia plantation to purchase a hunting dog only to find that his very presence is resented.

“The Fifth Day” finds two men in a rowboat dragging for a drowning victim.

“The Centerpiece” is about holiday celebrations in the old-world “German Christmas” tradition with an immigrant grandmother.

“Late in the Season” features a snapping turtle as an allegory about life and aging.

“Travelin’ Man” is the story of a fugitive escapee from a South Georgia chain gang who is hiding out in a swampy marsh and is being hunted by a cunning tracker with a rifle.

“The Wolves of Aguila” tells of the best wolf tracker in the southwest who goes on the hunt for a legendary wolf. While following the animal’s spoor, the hunter finds two little boys alone in the desert who may be feral.

“Horse Latitudes” is the story of a traveler on a freighter going upriver into the Amazon with a couple of strange and unlikely co-passengers.

“Midnight Turning Grey” is about a young woman working with severely-disturbed patients in a grim mental hospital. She becomes intrigued by a patient named Ernie whose behavior seems absolutely normal. She learns that Ernie is there as a resident not because he is mentally ill or disturbed; he is there because of a war wound from when a piece of shrapnel lodged in his brain. The metal shard is too close to his spine to operate, and Ernie has no choice but to endure. The young woman is told by the hospital administrators that the shrapnel in Ernie’s head sometimes caused Ernie to have uncontrollably violent fits and that this hospital was where he needed to be. Her misgivings about this patient’s treatment culminate in a sad conclusion.

“On the River Styx” is about Black-White relations in Florida cracker country. When a man takes a fishing trip to Florida’s Ten Thousand Islands in the most remote part of the Everglades, he encounters subservience and a terrifying pair of locals who seem to be the law in those parts.

“Lumumba Lives” is the final story in this collection. It tells of a man returning to his childhood hometown after living for many years as a foreign service worker in Africa. The tale revolves around a meeting with the locals while duck hunting.

These are wonderful stories. Author (and former CIA agent) Peter Matthiessen is the best at what he does.

My rating: 8/10, finished 5/15/22 (3641).

[Aaron Jette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Matthiessen is one of my favorite writers. This collection of short stories largely draws on stories written early in his career. They are dark and often disturbing. Many of the stories deal with racial tensions from a perspective that may seem a little dated by today's woke standards.

Matthiessen knows how to make the landscape a character. He does this in some of the best stories in this collection like Traveling Man, where a black man escaped from a chain gang is hunted by the white caretaker of an otherwise deserted coastal river island, and Lumumba Lives, where a psychotic failson goes duck hunting on the Hudson. The collection is a bit uneven but none of the stories are bad and one can see Matthiessen's progression as one proceeds chronologically through his career. The best stories rise to Hemingway levels (without the drunken machismo) in their portrayal of hunting, fishing, and the polluted undercurrents that plague the American subconscious.

Overall, it didn't match Matthiessen's masterpieces like At Play in Fields of the Lord, Far Tortuga, Shadow Country, or The Snow Leopard, but it's still a good read both for the completist or for the reader just looking for a few richly written dark tales to stir their soul.

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful. Most of the stories are very racist. I had read one of Matthiessen's other books, The Snow Leopard, and loved it as a work of naturalist non-fiction, but these short stories are at best unpleasant and worst offensive.

[Rudy Seifert · Rating 2 out of 5]

very dated language takes the luster off these stories

[Bob Peru · Rating 4 out of 5]

10 stories in chronological order of publication. the first seven are hit or miss. (Matthiessen seems to agree somewhat).
the last three are superb.

[John BrindAmour · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved The Snow Leopard and generally enjoy short stories, but I found myself rushing through this collection, anxious to be done with it. I wouldn't recommend.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a few authors I return to consistently to marvel at the power of language to evoke a place, a circumstance, or an emotion. Peter Matthiessen is on of them and On the River Styx does not disappoint. The book is a dark and uncomfortable collection of stories depicting race relations in the rural south in decades past. Matthiessen masterfully evokes the strain and tension present as race relations shifted, I found myself squirming in certain moments, and in others, putting the book down for a breather. All signs of an expert at his craft.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the River Styx was published in 1989. The individual stories in this collection were written and published at different intervals over a long span of time (from the 1950s into the 1980s). Anyone who reads these stories can follow Matthiessen's maturation as a writer over time. The centerpiece of this collection is On the River Styx, a masterful story of a fishing trip gone awry.

[Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

A vivid read. A rather dark and curious collection of stories aimed at examining human interactions.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong, clear voice. Almost folk-tales about serious subjects.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

a bit morbid stories

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good stories. For a Yalie.

Rugged.