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Swift River
Boston needs water. The engineers know where to find it. But four towns stand in their way ...
Swift River is the tale of Polly McPhee, a native of Greenwich, a small central Massachusetts town condemned with three others in 1927 to create a permanent supply of clean water for the people of Boston. One of the most successful and cost-effective civil engineering projects in history, the Quabbin reservoir secured fresh water for millions by drowning the Swift River Valley, once home to the Nipmuc and then to generations of farmers, merchants, artisans, and mill workers.
Over the course of this intimate yet far-reaching novel, Polly matures from a girl who sees the water project as an especially unfair phenomenon of an adult world that rarely makes sense to her anyway to a woman who understands that ultimately all of the past and all of our memories are drowned and erased from sight as surely as Greenwhich will be. As she discovers new sources of joy and suffers a series of profound personal losses, the project assumes an ever more complex and significant role in Polly's life and universe, ultimately becoming a dangerous but powerful ally in her path to survival and redemption.
Swift River is the tale of Polly McPhee, a native of Greenwich, a small central Massachusetts town condemned with three others in 1927 to create a permanent supply of clean water for the people of Boston. One of the most successful and cost-effective civil engineering projects in history, the Quabbin reservoir secured fresh water for millions by drowning the Swift River Valley, once home to the Nipmuc and then to generations of farmers, merchants, artisans, and mill workers.
Over the course of this intimate yet far-reaching novel, Polly matures from a girl who sees the water project as an especially unfair phenomenon of an adult world that rarely makes sense to her anyway to a woman who understands that ultimately all of the past and all of our memories are drowned and erased from sight as surely as Greenwhich will be. As she discovers new sources of joy and suffers a series of profound personal losses, the project assumes an ever more complex and significant role in Polly's life and universe, ultimately becoming a dangerous but powerful ally in her path to survival and redemption.
- GenresHistorical Fiction
364 pages, Paperback
First published November 16, 2014
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185 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 11, 2014
Polly is but a girl facing the impossible destruction of everything she knows, and everything that has involved generations of Americans in the pursuit of progress.
Now, this story has been told time and again in fiction and nonfiction; but what makes Swift River exceptional is an evocative, immersing writing style that mirrors the overwhelm of engulfing waters. Even the novel's first observational paragraph proceeds to wash the reader away with Polly's experiences: "I keep thinking about the dog. The one who disappeared just before we heard the news. For a while I figured he was killed by an automobile, then I decided he left us to stay with someone he liked better. But even later, after that, I wondered if he knew. Somehow knew what was coming. And maybe got clear away—you know I raised him, not them—out of the valley to someplace safe."
Polly's perspective is presented in a series of observations and journal entries that captures not only the events affecting Swift River, but her own coming-of-age.
While the novel is all about rebirth and how memories and influences of the past can be washed away to make room for a different future, don't expect Swift River to be about a singular event: this simply serves as the impetus for exploring Polly's wider world and the secrets she closely guards.
As the wider world converges on Swift River and Polly, she comes to see that issues are not as cut-and-dried as she would perceive, and begins to understand that against the specter of disaster are nuggets of possibility for rebirth and transformation.
Ultimately Swift River becomes not just the story of one girl's observation of her heritage's destruction just as she's on the cusp of understanding its meaning to her life, but the story of how we all survive adversity and disaster. With its lyrical passages, powerful psychological insights and evocative text, Swift River will carry readers on an unexpected journey of amazing discoveries packed with philosophical reflection and observations about life's meaning.
Now, this story has been told time and again in fiction and nonfiction; but what makes Swift River exceptional is an evocative, immersing writing style that mirrors the overwhelm of engulfing waters. Even the novel's first observational paragraph proceeds to wash the reader away with Polly's experiences: "I keep thinking about the dog. The one who disappeared just before we heard the news. For a while I figured he was killed by an automobile, then I decided he left us to stay with someone he liked better. But even later, after that, I wondered if he knew. Somehow knew what was coming. And maybe got clear away—you know I raised him, not them—out of the valley to someplace safe."
Polly's perspective is presented in a series of observations and journal entries that captures not only the events affecting Swift River, but her own coming-of-age.
While the novel is all about rebirth and how memories and influences of the past can be washed away to make room for a different future, don't expect Swift River to be about a singular event: this simply serves as the impetus for exploring Polly's wider world and the secrets she closely guards.
As the wider world converges on Swift River and Polly, she comes to see that issues are not as cut-and-dried as she would perceive, and begins to understand that against the specter of disaster are nuggets of possibility for rebirth and transformation.
Ultimately Swift River becomes not just the story of one girl's observation of her heritage's destruction just as she's on the cusp of understanding its meaning to her life, but the story of how we all survive adversity and disaster. With its lyrical passages, powerful psychological insights and evocative text, Swift River will carry readers on an unexpected journey of amazing discoveries packed with philosophical reflection and observations about life's meaning.
December 14, 2014
"I have always been fascinated by private miseries" says RC Binstock in response to a question about what interested him in writing Swift River. When the Quabbin Reservoir was created to provide drinking water for Boston, four and a half towns were flooded to create it. Swift River is a novel about the life of a resident of one of those towns, Greenwich, Mass. Polly is a girl when the project is finally officially proposed and given the green light in 1927, although there have been rumors about it for longer than that. The creation of the water works, dams, baffles and the purchasing of the property, dismantling of buildings, cutting of trees and moving of graves takes a deal longer, during which time Polly grows up. She is smarter than her country school-house education can provide for, and while she dreams of going to college, life has other plans for her. We learn how Polly feels about all this, as well as the slow progression of events towards the end of the valley mainly through entries in her diary. These are mostly straightforward, though as with any life there are agonies and achievements.
Less clear are the snippets of thoughts from other characters, or scenes of unattributed dialogue that concern something we will learn about from Polly later on, or that give a partial, clouded view of something deeper. These can be frustrating at first, and then the realization dawns that this is a way of examining the patchwork of lives woven through the valley community, of seeing them not as part of the tapestry, but as individual threads. They are to be cut off, a rip in a pattern, by the impending flood. It is a hard effect to pull off, and Binstock does not always give quite enough information, but the result is worth the moments of confusion. His writing reminds me of Annie Proulx, not in style so much as in the austerity and odd beauty it creates. Theirs is a hard-earned, wise poetry of the actual, one capable of keen observation that sometimes manages to prick the very heart of what it sees. Also like Proulx there is that streak of narrative obstenence, a willful refusal to let the story cohere or bow to conventions like romance or happily ever after.
It is hard to remove these moments from their context, from the collage that builds up as the story unfolds, but here are a few entries that caught my ear:
"June 26: It's like one hundred million people in a nightmare together. Pick any place in he country and there's misery there. The same the world round they say. The definition of misfortune used to be not to me but that is no longer valid. This is happening to all of us, even the lucky ones. You can't eat a potato without thinking of the people who might knock you down for it. You can't put two dollars together without thinking how you ought to give one of them away."
"September 18: They've started the hearings about the Rabbit, apparently. With lots of lawyers for the B and A and for the commission too. Most people think it's about what to do with the line but it isn't, of course. It's about big piles of money. It's astonishing how good at avoiding the obvious people are. Time after time."
"May 9: I begin to have some notion of the hugeness of my failure. I was a girl but even so. I begin to have some notion of what I might have done, but didn't, and it takes my breath away."
"April 7, 1936: You can't sell anything these days. Nor give it away. To valley people I mean. No one wants it nor has room. Used to be a useful object had more lives than a cat; now we're trying to figure out how to unburden ourselves. A common problem not easily fixed."
"They'd run like hell around the yard, round and round, almost endlessly -- my sister giggling, the dog barking, the chickens hustling out of their way and then (stupid chickens) walking right back into it .... I suppose if there is a heaven, which I'm precious sure there's not, and if I get there, which is even more farfetched, the best part of it for me will be watching that damned kid and that damned dog going round and round and round, giggling and barking, loving each other, going round."
The Quabbin Reservoir is a vast, lovely body of water, and has done yoeman service for many years serving the thirst of Bostonians. Swift River gives an understanding of the real sacrifice required for that service, unknown to so many in the generations of beneficiaries.
"I encourage all readers, but especially those who live or have lived in the greater Boston communities served by the Metropolitan Water Resources Authority to visit the Quabbin Reservoir when opportunity arises.... As with the meat from the supermarket and the electricity from the socket, it is best to know where your water actually comes from."
Wild native brook trout are drab with intense with dots of color, and yet they blend into the background in the pockets of water hidden in the overgrown streams of New England. Theirs is not a gaudy world; its waters are pure, cold and obscure. The pleasure in fishing for them is not sport in the traditional sense, but instead consists of gaining a knowledge of their world, and the wonder entering it evokes. Herein lies, like a trout hidden in a pool, the pleasure of reading Swift River -- this is not a thriller, there is no denouement where the main character confronts the Powers that Be to make a Statement. But walking in her shoes for a while, living in the oddly curtailed reality of intentional ending is eye opening in the best kind of way. You begin to see the shapes of other lives lived -- fish hanging in the current -- hidden in your daily necessities.
Less clear are the snippets of thoughts from other characters, or scenes of unattributed dialogue that concern something we will learn about from Polly later on, or that give a partial, clouded view of something deeper. These can be frustrating at first, and then the realization dawns that this is a way of examining the patchwork of lives woven through the valley community, of seeing them not as part of the tapestry, but as individual threads. They are to be cut off, a rip in a pattern, by the impending flood. It is a hard effect to pull off, and Binstock does not always give quite enough information, but the result is worth the moments of confusion. His writing reminds me of Annie Proulx, not in style so much as in the austerity and odd beauty it creates. Theirs is a hard-earned, wise poetry of the actual, one capable of keen observation that sometimes manages to prick the very heart of what it sees. Also like Proulx there is that streak of narrative obstenence, a willful refusal to let the story cohere or bow to conventions like romance or happily ever after.
It is hard to remove these moments from their context, from the collage that builds up as the story unfolds, but here are a few entries that caught my ear:
"June 26: It's like one hundred million people in a nightmare together. Pick any place in he country and there's misery there. The same the world round they say. The definition of misfortune used to be not to me but that is no longer valid. This is happening to all of us, even the lucky ones. You can't eat a potato without thinking of the people who might knock you down for it. You can't put two dollars together without thinking how you ought to give one of them away."
"September 18: They've started the hearings about the Rabbit, apparently. With lots of lawyers for the B and A and for the commission too. Most people think it's about what to do with the line but it isn't, of course. It's about big piles of money. It's astonishing how good at avoiding the obvious people are. Time after time."
"May 9: I begin to have some notion of the hugeness of my failure. I was a girl but even so. I begin to have some notion of what I might have done, but didn't, and it takes my breath away."
"April 7, 1936: You can't sell anything these days. Nor give it away. To valley people I mean. No one wants it nor has room. Used to be a useful object had more lives than a cat; now we're trying to figure out how to unburden ourselves. A common problem not easily fixed."
"They'd run like hell around the yard, round and round, almost endlessly -- my sister giggling, the dog barking, the chickens hustling out of their way and then (stupid chickens) walking right back into it .... I suppose if there is a heaven, which I'm precious sure there's not, and if I get there, which is even more farfetched, the best part of it for me will be watching that damned kid and that damned dog going round and round and round, giggling and barking, loving each other, going round."
The Quabbin Reservoir is a vast, lovely body of water, and has done yoeman service for many years serving the thirst of Bostonians. Swift River gives an understanding of the real sacrifice required for that service, unknown to so many in the generations of beneficiaries.
"I encourage all readers, but especially those who live or have lived in the greater Boston communities served by the Metropolitan Water Resources Authority to visit the Quabbin Reservoir when opportunity arises.... As with the meat from the supermarket and the electricity from the socket, it is best to know where your water actually comes from."
Wild native brook trout are drab with intense with dots of color, and yet they blend into the background in the pockets of water hidden in the overgrown streams of New England. Theirs is not a gaudy world; its waters are pure, cold and obscure. The pleasure in fishing for them is not sport in the traditional sense, but instead consists of gaining a knowledge of their world, and the wonder entering it evokes. Herein lies, like a trout hidden in a pool, the pleasure of reading Swift River -- this is not a thriller, there is no denouement where the main character confronts the Powers that Be to make a Statement. But walking in her shoes for a while, living in the oddly curtailed reality of intentional ending is eye opening in the best kind of way. You begin to see the shapes of other lives lived -- fish hanging in the current -- hidden in your daily necessities.
October 31, 2014
In Swift River author R. C. Binstock uses the tender, inchoate voice of a young girl to speak for the doomed Swift River Valley in Depression-era Massachusetts. The valley is doomed because the thirsty residents of Boston need water, and the valley – families and farms and factories of long standing – will be inundated when Boston gets its reservoir. The eloquent and plaintive diary entries of Polly form the perfect canvas for witnessing the mounting weight of loss; they are stunning, unforgettable, and captivating. This character and her brave suffering are truly precious inventions, not to be missed.
"Swift River" shares with Mr. Binstock’s other work a fearless willingness to cite and decry the greedy or rapacious aspects of human nature. As in his well-received "Tree of Heaven," Mr. Binstock never fears to plumb the depths or heroics of human nature.
In this book, Polly McPhee of the Swift River Valley in Massachusetts starts a diary as she approaches her 12th birthday. A seeming world away in Boston, the state Legislature passes a law that will destroy her farm, her family, and her way of life. Hers and three other towns will be permanently inundated under a new reservoir so that Boston can have water. Polly’s brief but heartrending diary entries propel the story, along with snippets from other sources. If it isn’t always obvious what or who these other sources are, finding out or already knowing the answer is one of the many sources of delight here. One very powerful device drives a certain narrative energy as well: the author sets up a contrast between Polly’s elegiac diary entries and the ponderous, self-satisfied bureaucratese of how Polly and her family will be ground under the state’s heel.
Polly’s diary entries, which form the book’s main framework, give us a glimpse into a young girl’s mind and heart as her world’s ripped asunder. Loss does form the backdrop for her narrative, but we do see the lively, developing teen and young woman, who blesses the world with her good heart in spite of all the odds stacked against her. In her entries, Mr. Binstock manages unerringly to capture the hope and wonder and fear and daring of this marvelous fictional invention – this Polly.
The lead character carries the narrative forward, obviously, but she does so in a way that’s equal parts endearing and awe-inspiring. She’s forced into adulthood far too quickly, but at the same time sees the beautiful rural landscape of her home valley, the awkward, mostly unwelcome advances of boys, the blessed community of school, the solace of study, the necessity of chores – all of these she faces with a proud and resourceful innocence that place her in the first rank of characters.
I have spent a lot of energy on Swift River’s protagonist, and with good reason. It is with Polly’s development that this novel reaches its highest achievement. By no means let this book pass you by. Unreservedly I add it to my pantheon of masterpieces. Take it up!
http://bassoprofundo1.blogspot.com/20...
"Swift River" shares with Mr. Binstock’s other work a fearless willingness to cite and decry the greedy or rapacious aspects of human nature. As in his well-received "Tree of Heaven," Mr. Binstock never fears to plumb the depths or heroics of human nature.
In this book, Polly McPhee of the Swift River Valley in Massachusetts starts a diary as she approaches her 12th birthday. A seeming world away in Boston, the state Legislature passes a law that will destroy her farm, her family, and her way of life. Hers and three other towns will be permanently inundated under a new reservoir so that Boston can have water. Polly’s brief but heartrending diary entries propel the story, along with snippets from other sources. If it isn’t always obvious what or who these other sources are, finding out or already knowing the answer is one of the many sources of delight here. One very powerful device drives a certain narrative energy as well: the author sets up a contrast between Polly’s elegiac diary entries and the ponderous, self-satisfied bureaucratese of how Polly and her family will be ground under the state’s heel.
Polly’s diary entries, which form the book’s main framework, give us a glimpse into a young girl’s mind and heart as her world’s ripped asunder. Loss does form the backdrop for her narrative, but we do see the lively, developing teen and young woman, who blesses the world with her good heart in spite of all the odds stacked against her. In her entries, Mr. Binstock manages unerringly to capture the hope and wonder and fear and daring of this marvelous fictional invention – this Polly.
The lead character carries the narrative forward, obviously, but she does so in a way that’s equal parts endearing and awe-inspiring. She’s forced into adulthood far too quickly, but at the same time sees the beautiful rural landscape of her home valley, the awkward, mostly unwelcome advances of boys, the blessed community of school, the solace of study, the necessity of chores – all of these she faces with a proud and resourceful innocence that place her in the first rank of characters.
I have spent a lot of energy on Swift River’s protagonist, and with good reason. It is with Polly’s development that this novel reaches its highest achievement. By no means let this book pass you by. Unreservedly I add it to my pantheon of masterpieces. Take it up!
http://bassoprofundo1.blogspot.com/20...
December 16, 2014
Good historical fiction immerses the reader in another time and place, and the best creates an alternative reality that can be more convincing than a narrative history of the same events. Once in a while a rare historical novel transcends the genre entirely and becomes a literary achievement of the highest order. The Seige by Helen Dunmore is for me such a book, and so is Swift River.
Binstock's story is about a town in the Swift River valley of central Massachusetts that is sacrificed to create the giant Quabbin Reservoir, necessary to supply water to the growing metropolis of Boston. This is largely an epistolary novel, told through the diary entries of a young girl, Polly McPhee. Tragically, Polly's coming of age is concurrent with the inevitable demise of her town, and her youthful optimism therefore becomes sacrificed as well. Polly's voice is spot on; we see through her eyes and feel through her heart.
Swift River is ultimately a novel about loss, and how in some of us loss is the price we pay for wisdom. For the reader, this bleak premise is rewarded by the joy of discovering prose that borders on being poetry. Swift River is a wonderful book.
Binstock's story is about a town in the Swift River valley of central Massachusetts that is sacrificed to create the giant Quabbin Reservoir, necessary to supply water to the growing metropolis of Boston. This is largely an epistolary novel, told through the diary entries of a young girl, Polly McPhee. Tragically, Polly's coming of age is concurrent with the inevitable demise of her town, and her youthful optimism therefore becomes sacrificed as well. Polly's voice is spot on; we see through her eyes and feel through her heart.
Swift River is ultimately a novel about loss, and how in some of us loss is the price we pay for wisdom. For the reader, this bleak premise is rewarded by the joy of discovering prose that borders on being poetry. Swift River is a wonderful book.
February 9, 2017
Growing up going to the Quabbin Reservior this was a great story. I loved how in was fiction but it had a lot of what life for those townsfolk was like during the time of the building of the reservoir.
December 30, 2014
Water storage is important. During the early part of the 20th century, many lakes and reservoirs were built in this country. These projects submerged towns and farms, forcing people to leave places their families lived in, some for several generations. This book is the story of one girl, whose entire childhood was spent in the shadow of one of these projects. She is 11 when the project is begun and the initial surveying starts. Until she turns 21, she watches the changes the new reservoir makes to her home. Everything changes and everything goes away, but no change can harm you. Things are just different, but they go on. This is a quiet book that I found heavy reading. I got my copy free from LibraryThing.
November 23, 2014
An amazing story, written in a journal entry type format, of a small town that was in the way of progress of a dam. Mostly about the main character, Polly, it is a heart warming tale of love and loss she feels as a result of the destruction of Greenwich. I found it to be a very interesting tale of life in the 30's, and the everyday details were fascinating. A well-done book, and one that really stands out in my mind.
Thank you to Goodreads First Reads for the free autographed copy, I loved this book!
Thank you to Goodreads First Reads for the free autographed copy, I loved this book!
November 18, 2014
Swift River by R.C. Binstock is the story of one family – one girl in particular – who is being forced out of her home to allow for construction of a new reservoir. As the losses in Polly McPhee's life mount, her life becomes a metaphor for the towns themselves. As if this were a true history, I want to know what happens to Polly after the book ends.
Read my complete review at: http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2014...
Reviewed based on a copy received from the author
Read my complete review at: http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2014...
Reviewed based on a copy received from the author
November 10, 2014
Totally engrossing historical fiction, superb story material...I would have rated it higher except I often (especially early on) could not figure out which character(s) were speaking in the very brief chapters. It frustrated me not to be able to figure it out (give me more clues, man!). And, what happened with Roy and the bus driver's son? Did Polly become a true hermit? Why didn't Caleb come home? Please let me know if you know the answers....
November 14, 2014
I really enjoyed this book, the main character Polly and her story were incredible,so well written, could put myself right in the story with her. Love it when I can do that and feel like I am watching a movie while reading. Being that this is a true event that happened I googled it after and even saw pictures of the valley etc, before and after, incredible. Will certainly visit this site now. Thank you for this book, loved it. Recommend this book to all.
November 21, 2015
This book was written by a caring author. I enjoyed it so much and felt the research on this true event of the water needed by Boston was thorough. Although throughout there was a sadness that I couldn't shake, the main character, Polly, showed an emotional as well as physical loss that seemed so realistic. A good book from beginning to end.
December 27, 2014
I liked the first half more, maybe because the main character was younger and seeing things through more innocent eyes?
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews