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Blue River
The long-awaited novel by the author of the bestselling Emperor of the Air is a story of astounding power and sensibility. Lawrence and Edward are two brothers who haven't seen each other in ten years. Lawrence--a drifter, a gambler, a man of questionable character--appears on the cautious Edward's doorstep, challenging his beliefs and forcing him to recall their tumultuous childhood and uncover a long-buried story of monstrous betrayal.
236 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1991
About the author
Ethan Canin
33 books316 followersHighly regarded as both a novelist and a short story writer, Ethan Canin has ranged in his career from the "breathtaking" short stories of Emperor of the Air to the "stunning" novellas of The Palace Thief, from the "wise and beautiful" short novel Carry Me Across the Water to the "epic" America America. His short stories, which have been the basis for four Hollywood movies, have appeared in a wide range of magazines, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, The Paris Review, and Granta, and have been selected for many prize anthologies.
The son of a musician and a public-school art teacher, he spent his childhood in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and California before attending Stanford University, the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, and then Harvard Medical School. He subsequently gave up a career in medicine to write and teach, and is now F. Wendell Miller Professor of English at his alma mater, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he has been privileged to teach a great number of talented new writers. In his spare time he is very slowly remodeling two old houses, one in the woods of northern Michigan and the other in Iowa City, where he lives with his wife, their three children, and four chickens.
The son of a musician and a public-school art teacher, he spent his childhood in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and California before attending Stanford University, the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, and then Harvard Medical School. He subsequently gave up a career in medicine to write and teach, and is now F. Wendell Miller Professor of English at his alma mater, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he has been privileged to teach a great number of talented new writers. In his spare time he is very slowly remodeling two old houses, one in the woods of northern Michigan and the other in Iowa City, where he lives with his wife, their three children, and four chickens.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
will-never-read
October 29, 2022I'm not going to read this (I'm unloading it), but I thought it was absolutely fascinating how dishonest at least one of the blurbs was.
The first page is headed "Praise for Ethan Canin's Blue River". The last blurb is from Kirkus Reviews, which reads: "Canin is the real thing ..... a generous writer with heart and style and power to surprise."
Now, that surprised me, because I had just read the Kirkus review of Blue River and I didn't remember reading that. I remembered a negative review.
So I googled Kirkus' review of Canin's well-received short story collection Emperor of the Air, and sure enough, THAT is where the pull quote was pulled from.
Then I brought up Kirkus' review of Blue River again and here's what it said: "Canin's fluent, relaxed, and often stunning way with the short story (Emperor of the Air) is all but erased in this pulseless attempt at a novel. ..... Most of the story is milky recollection, in which no character other than Lawrence seems palpable or charged. Cliché veins the prose.....and is not helped by Canin's decision to write in a first person that's always addressing Lawrence, as in a long letter. It gives the book a whispered, ultimately lethargic tone, muscle-less. Disappointing."
December 19, 2009
20 years ago I read Ethan Canin's first book - short stories. I was impressed. Here was a very talented 27 year old with a published book. So when I came across this novel at a used book sale in August, I remembered the author and had to buy the book. I believe this was his second book. It is quite good. He writes it from a very interesting and different perspective. It is the story of a younger brother struggling to understand his older brother twenty years after his childhood. In many ways it is not my typical book but it was really well done. I suspect there are many parallels between his fiction and his reality in this story. I more than just liked it with a 3 star rating but I couldn't add it to my 4 star. Nonetheless, I thought it was a very good book.
May 9, 2021
So, funny, apparently I read this before, although I have no conscious memory of it. Perhaps it's why I got the foreshadowing!
Anyway, in the story of two brothers who have become estranged, Canin explores the thin line between "good" and "bad", how so much of that can be in the eyes of those who see you, and how they want to see you.
Anyway, in the story of two brothers who have become estranged, Canin explores the thin line between "good" and "bad", how so much of that can be in the eyes of those who see you, and how they want to see you.
December 9, 2010
This is a story of the relationship between two brothers.
When he was younger, Edward looked up to his brother, Lawrence. Years pass and Lawrence, who was six years older than Edward, leaves home and doesn't stay in communication with the family.
One day, he shows up at Edward's door. It's been fifteen years since Edward saw his brother. Currently, Edward is a successful eye-surgeon and Lawrence is an out of work card dealer.
Lawrence acts crazy in front of Edward's five year old son, Jonathan. This wins Jonathan over but Edward is skeptical. Then, Lawrence asks if he can stay longer. Edward refuses and gives him some money. Then drives him to the bus station and watches him leave.
Perhaps, Edward thought about his brother but in the next section of the novel, he tells of the younger days between the brothers.
Nothing happens in this book. Edward is a passive, sermonizing character and Lawrence is a Machiavelliian, out for whatever thrill he can get.
The novel has had mixed reviews. I continued to read, expecting the story to improve but it didn't.
When he was younger, Edward looked up to his brother, Lawrence. Years pass and Lawrence, who was six years older than Edward, leaves home and doesn't stay in communication with the family.
One day, he shows up at Edward's door. It's been fifteen years since Edward saw his brother. Currently, Edward is a successful eye-surgeon and Lawrence is an out of work card dealer.
Lawrence acts crazy in front of Edward's five year old son, Jonathan. This wins Jonathan over but Edward is skeptical. Then, Lawrence asks if he can stay longer. Edward refuses and gives him some money. Then drives him to the bus station and watches him leave.
Perhaps, Edward thought about his brother but in the next section of the novel, he tells of the younger days between the brothers.
Nothing happens in this book. Edward is a passive, sermonizing character and Lawrence is a Machiavelliian, out for whatever thrill he can get.
The novel has had mixed reviews. I continued to read, expecting the story to improve but it didn't.
July 14, 2007
I really enjoyed this book. Wickedness in Wisconsin - who knew? His collection of stories, "The Emperor of Air" was also pretty damned impressive.
So, the central mystery remains. How in God's name is someone as obviously smart and talented as Ethan Canin remain married to that obvious basketcase Aylet whatever the hell her name is? Just sayin'
Added on edit: I´ve just learned that it is Michael Chabon, not Ethan Canin, who is married to Ayelet Waldman. The mystery underlying the earlier question remains, however.
So, the central mystery remains. How in God's name is someone as obviously smart and talented as Ethan Canin remain married to that obvious basketcase Aylet whatever the hell her name is? Just sayin'
Added on edit: I´ve just learned that it is Michael Chabon, not Ethan Canin, who is married to Ayelet Waldman. The mystery underlying the earlier question remains, however.
March 5, 2009
It's very rare that I don't finish a novel. I was about 5/6 through this book. Not sure why I didn't finish it, he's a good writer. I think I just stopped caring about the characters, and didn't have enough curiosity to see it through to the end.
June 6, 2020
This is a quiet book about the relationship between two brothers. It starts in the present day and spends most of its time in the past, when they were growing up. It’s beautifully written, if at times a little slow. I recommend it.
October 12, 2021
Having read Canin’s A Doubter’s Almanac and got through it in spite of one of the most offensive main characters, Milo Andret, I’ve ever encountered, I thought I might try this novel I had found in a used book shop. Well, another obnoxious character. This is a very ambiguous book full of inaction or questionable action and indecision. It consists of a string of episodes without any consistent point or relationship. This book went nowhere. By the end I realized I couldn’t care less about any of the characters. I’m surprised I finished it. What a waste of talent, because Canin is a capable writer.
January 27, 2018
I remember loving Ethan Canin's Emperor of the Air decades ago so thought I'd try his first novel. Although I am mesmerized by this author's gorgeous, visual prose, I found his descriptions so hyper-focused that they pulled me out of the story line. The pacing is also quite slow. I would, however, try another one of his novels even though this one dragged for me.
June 20, 2017
This realistic story of estranged brothers seeking compassion, understanding and reconciliation felt sad. The author seems to really get what it's like to grow up in a dysfunctional home. I would have liked to have seen a better conclusion. Maybe he plans to write a sequel....
July 9, 2021
Took this backpacking, so stuck with it because there was nothing else to read. Fell asleep twice in the midst of reading, which is to say it was very slow in places. Eventually I finished it and was glad to have made it to the end.
October 13, 2019
Canin is one of my favorite authors, especially as he is part of the Iowa Writers Workshop. This was a strange story of two brothers and their thorny relationship. Not his best book.
December 7, 2021
I couldn't get through this. Usually Canin is a pretty good writer, but this one was all over the place. The shift to second POV narration wears thin fast.
March 20, 2022
Beautiful writing, essentially no plot. Not my kind of book but others might like it.
June 8, 2025
Idunno, it was alright. I really liked 'Carry Me Across the Water' but I didn't feel like Blue River had the narrative backbone to carry the existential weight it is packing.
October 15, 2026
Un libro buenísimo. Una historia muy bien contada y muy profunda. Lo super recomiendo
April 3, 2012
Ethan Canin paints with words. His prose conveys both the rich textures of oils and the soft graces of watercolors.
Like all art that moves us, Canin's storytelling in Blue River is about its specific subjects and about more as well. It invites us to look beyond the images it presents and to reflect on other subjects at which it only hints. Canin's words, like a painter's brush strokes, free our thoughts to drift. When they touch back down, they enrich us.
There is beauty in Canin's art:
I have always been made silent by zoos and museums, and at the city aquarium can watch the electric eels, as still as assassins, for half the afternoon. The streetcar took me to the city aquarium, where I walked upstairs, zealous and alone, still in my blue scrubs from the hospital. I picked one tank each visit and stood in front of it. Approaching an animal so closely was a suspension of nature's wary side, and a small miracle not unlike the miracle of anaesthesia. I felt the same forbidden tingle standing a hand's length from a circling hammerhead as I did when the scalpels I wielded made their first painless cuts into an abdomen. For a moment God and nature looked the other way.
The man staring down the divine is Edward Sellars, a physician with a loving wife and son, a thriving practice and a luxurious house and other comforts that material success brings.
Edward savors the beauty of highways, which he believes is hidden to all but a privileged few. He is an eye doctor, but he closes his own eyes for several seconds at a time as he drives alone along those almost empty highways at night. He seeks professional help to learn why he takes such risks, but his perception is keen enough to suggest he understands his drives more fully than he would like.
A brief visit from his long-estranged brother lets loose Edward's memories of their lives as they and their sister grew up in a small town along the Mississippi River in a household headed at least nominally by their mother. She clings desperately to her religion in hopes that faith will ease the sting of her husband's leaving her to raise their children without him.
Most of the novel is Edward's recalling the past in a monologue that sounds as if he is talking to himself, although it is directed at least in part to the brother with whom he can no longer have conversations. The events in this story serve more to illuminate characters about whom Canin makes us care than they do to propel the plot.
Comparing a work by one writer to a work by another is a kind of critical shorthand that rarely works. Often the analogy fails to convey what is unique about the newer writing.
Canin's stories have been compared to those of writers ranging from F. Scott Fitzgerald to John Cheever. Such comparisons work only if one understands them as one would understand a comparison of Van Goghs to Cezannes or Gauguins. Canin's writings are not lesser works, merely different ones. They can be displayed in the mind's gallery along with works by more celebrated authors, each complementing the others without being diminished by them.
Blue River's ending leaves much unresolved. This suggests not that Canin despaired of tying up his narrative, but that he keenly understands the limits of what we can understand about ourselves and others.
No matter how well we know ourselves and how clearly we remember all we've done, we can never know what we will do. Our capacity for surprise is infinite, and we are always capable either of falling short of our expectations or surpassing them. Our past may be crystals, but our future is clouds.
Canin reflects this in an exquisitely rendered conclusion that is -- in a word chosen carefully with full appreciation for how rarely it applies -- masterful.
Like all art that moves us, Canin's storytelling in Blue River is about its specific subjects and about more as well. It invites us to look beyond the images it presents and to reflect on other subjects at which it only hints. Canin's words, like a painter's brush strokes, free our thoughts to drift. When they touch back down, they enrich us.
There is beauty in Canin's art:
I have always been made silent by zoos and museums, and at the city aquarium can watch the electric eels, as still as assassins, for half the afternoon. The streetcar took me to the city aquarium, where I walked upstairs, zealous and alone, still in my blue scrubs from the hospital. I picked one tank each visit and stood in front of it. Approaching an animal so closely was a suspension of nature's wary side, and a small miracle not unlike the miracle of anaesthesia. I felt the same forbidden tingle standing a hand's length from a circling hammerhead as I did when the scalpels I wielded made their first painless cuts into an abdomen. For a moment God and nature looked the other way.
The man staring down the divine is Edward Sellars, a physician with a loving wife and son, a thriving practice and a luxurious house and other comforts that material success brings.
Edward savors the beauty of highways, which he believes is hidden to all but a privileged few. He is an eye doctor, but he closes his own eyes for several seconds at a time as he drives alone along those almost empty highways at night. He seeks professional help to learn why he takes such risks, but his perception is keen enough to suggest he understands his drives more fully than he would like.
A brief visit from his long-estranged brother lets loose Edward's memories of their lives as they and their sister grew up in a small town along the Mississippi River in a household headed at least nominally by their mother. She clings desperately to her religion in hopes that faith will ease the sting of her husband's leaving her to raise their children without him.
Most of the novel is Edward's recalling the past in a monologue that sounds as if he is talking to himself, although it is directed at least in part to the brother with whom he can no longer have conversations. The events in this story serve more to illuminate characters about whom Canin makes us care than they do to propel the plot.
Comparing a work by one writer to a work by another is a kind of critical shorthand that rarely works. Often the analogy fails to convey what is unique about the newer writing.
Canin's stories have been compared to those of writers ranging from F. Scott Fitzgerald to John Cheever. Such comparisons work only if one understands them as one would understand a comparison of Van Goghs to Cezannes or Gauguins. Canin's writings are not lesser works, merely different ones. They can be displayed in the mind's gallery along with works by more celebrated authors, each complementing the others without being diminished by them.
Blue River's ending leaves much unresolved. This suggests not that Canin despaired of tying up his narrative, but that he keenly understands the limits of what we can understand about ourselves and others.
No matter how well we know ourselves and how clearly we remember all we've done, we can never know what we will do. Our capacity for surprise is infinite, and we are always capable either of falling short of our expectations or surpassing them. Our past may be crystals, but our future is clouds.
Canin reflects this in an exquisitely rendered conclusion that is -- in a word chosen carefully with full appreciation for how rarely it applies -- masterful.
February 5, 2017
I think this is Canin's first, or one of his first, published works, and for a boy who grew up in the midwest it struck home as a tale of 2 brothers and the paths their lives took.
The younger brother looking up at the older brother: "From my seat in the basement of St. Vitus Church I looked up at him standing at the podium, his voice keen and his eyes filled with a fierceness that made his heart seem true and unbendable at last."
the narrator to, I think, the older brother, "What was not your realm, however, what was the curse of your character and the seed of your downfall, I now think, was your inability to forget the insults and petty defeats of your life."
the ending has the troubled older brother departing on a bus, but the younger brother getting in his car and following the bus - while not clear if he will just follow, or will retrieve his brother, he thinks, "and as I top a hill and see in front of my your bus's distant taillights and the blinking vista of these sleeping towns, I feel the sudden ebullient, etherous opening in my chest that is faith, perhaps, or God, or blinding light."
The younger brother looking up at the older brother: "From my seat in the basement of St. Vitus Church I looked up at him standing at the podium, his voice keen and his eyes filled with a fierceness that made his heart seem true and unbendable at last."
the narrator to, I think, the older brother, "What was not your realm, however, what was the curse of your character and the seed of your downfall, I now think, was your inability to forget the insults and petty defeats of your life."
the ending has the troubled older brother departing on a bus, but the younger brother getting in his car and following the bus - while not clear if he will just follow, or will retrieve his brother, he thinks, "and as I top a hill and see in front of my your bus's distant taillights and the blinking vista of these sleeping towns, I feel the sudden ebullient, etherous opening in my chest that is faith, perhaps, or God, or blinding light."
September 28, 2012
i read the first two pages. It was really catchy and hooked me. it talks about how he walks into his house an sees a tall man that looks like a bum but after reading the prologue I learned that it his brother
His brother is very messy. his clothesz are really messy. He hasnt shaved so he has a long beard and a mustache. He is weird and doesnt talk much. he is mostly catching up with his brother. Im still crious as to why hes dressed an messy like a bum. The son is kinda shy. His name is jonathan he is introduced to his uncle. i can relate with him in a way because i was kind of shy as kid and didnt like talking to most people. Jonathan in the book is shy an doesnt want to talk to his uncle lawrence.
The characters are being introduced more.The bum looking guy appeals to the boy an they get along. the bum looking guy is the brother of the main character.The brother, jonathan is very gentle an kind.He is kind of child like. the theme hasnt been completely clear yet. The theme could be that you dont need much in life if you dont want.
His brother is very messy. his clothesz are really messy. He hasnt shaved so he has a long beard and a mustache. He is weird and doesnt talk much. he is mostly catching up with his brother. Im still crious as to why hes dressed an messy like a bum. The son is kinda shy. His name is jonathan he is introduced to his uncle. i can relate with him in a way because i was kind of shy as kid and didnt like talking to most people. Jonathan in the book is shy an doesnt want to talk to his uncle lawrence.
The characters are being introduced more.The bum looking guy appeals to the boy an they get along. the bum looking guy is the brother of the main character.The brother, jonathan is very gentle an kind.He is kind of child like. the theme hasnt been completely clear yet. The theme could be that you dont need much in life if you dont want.
November 2, 2012
I just like Ethan Canin's writing style. A man looks back on his life beginning as a young boy when he idolized his brother, who is 6 years older. I would recommend this book to those who enjoy a book simply because it is so well written. I actually enjoyed the story, although I see by the reviews here and elsewhere that many thought it was too slow. It is a short book, and I think it is worth reading.
October 8, 2014
That it has taken me three (3) weeks to read a book of under 200 pages should have been foretelling enough. And yet like a faithful dog, I kept returning anew to watch as the author most ambitiously, and quite commendably, attempted to chart the points at which his characters' choices collided with their destinies. But for all its aspiration, 'Blue River' is strictly businesslike and despite a few moments of beauty, was much less than thoroughly satisfying.
August 21, 2008
I'm abandoning this one....mid-way through and it still isn't engaging for me. I've got way too many books on my list to feel obligated to finish the ones I just don't like...something I used to force myself to do.
December 30, 2012
Although I like Ethan Canin's writing style, I was a little bored by this book about two brothers who are completely different. I read Canin's first book "Emperor of the Air" (a book of short stories) years ago and loved it - I would recommend it over "Blue River."
March 14, 2013
Edward finds himself taking midnight drives on the highway and closing his eyes for stretches of many seconds. He knows the turns of the road that well, but he also knows he’s taking his life in his hands. Read more: http://hellogiggles.com/ethan-canin-b...
March 25, 2013
A story that conjures up compassion for anyone who has a sibling or is a parent to more than one child. I find myself asking what is it that makes children who were raised in the same family turn out so very different? More evidence for the fact we are more than our DNA.
March 1, 2015
Two brothers, a sister and their mother make up a family that lives in Blue River. The story revolves around the brothers, Lawrence and Edward. Edward is a successful doctor with a wife a young son. Lawrence shows up on his doorstep after being absent for 15 years.
August 19, 2007
Not my favorite Canin novel. Much of it is in second person, addressed to first-person narrator's brother.I struggled through.
July 16, 2008
excellent book. strong writer
October 15, 2008
This is a great change of pace from Canin's incredible short stories.
November 28, 2008
This is probably a bit too meditative, too structured, study of two brothers, but Canin is an expert craftsman, a master storyteller.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews