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Only the River
From California Book Award silver medalist and Simpson Literary Prize finalist author Anne Raeff, comes a novel of two families set in New York and Nicaragua over several generations as their lives collide in mysterious ways.
Fleeing the ravages of wartime Vienna, Pepa and her family find safe harbor in the small town of El Castillo, on the banks of the San Juan River in Nicaragua. There her parents seek to eradicate Yellow Fever while Pepa falls under the spell of the jungle and the town’s eccentric inhabitants. But Pepa’s life ― including her relationship with local boy Guillermo ― comes to a halt when her family abruptly moves to New York, leaving the young girl disoriented and heartbroken.
As the years pass, Pepa and Guillermo’s lives diverge, as does the fate of Guillermo’s homeland. Nicaragua soon becomes engulfed in revolutionary fervor as the Sandinista movement vies for the nation’s soul. Guillermo’s daughter transforms into an accidental revolutionary. Pepa’s son defies his parents’ wishes and joins the revolution in Nicaragua, only to disappear into the jungle. It will take decades before the fates of these two families converge again, revealing how love, grief, and passion are intertwined with a nation's destiny.
Spanning generations and several wars, Only the River explores the way displacement both destroys two families and creates new ones, sparking a revolution that changes their lives in the most unexpected ways.
Fleeing the ravages of wartime Vienna, Pepa and her family find safe harbor in the small town of El Castillo, on the banks of the San Juan River in Nicaragua. There her parents seek to eradicate Yellow Fever while Pepa falls under the spell of the jungle and the town’s eccentric inhabitants. But Pepa’s life ― including her relationship with local boy Guillermo ― comes to a halt when her family abruptly moves to New York, leaving the young girl disoriented and heartbroken.
As the years pass, Pepa and Guillermo’s lives diverge, as does the fate of Guillermo’s homeland. Nicaragua soon becomes engulfed in revolutionary fervor as the Sandinista movement vies for the nation’s soul. Guillermo’s daughter transforms into an accidental revolutionary. Pepa’s son defies his parents’ wishes and joins the revolution in Nicaragua, only to disappear into the jungle. It will take decades before the fates of these two families converge again, revealing how love, grief, and passion are intertwined with a nation's destiny.
Spanning generations and several wars, Only the River explores the way displacement both destroys two families and creates new ones, sparking a revolution that changes their lives in the most unexpected ways.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published May 5, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
October 12, 2020
This is a powerful, multi generational story of two families, spanning three continents and two wars. When the novel opens, we meet Pepa who at eighty five has not been able to fully divulge her past to her children or to her husband before he died. She has not been able to bring herself to go to Nicaragua to determine what happened to her son who went there to join the revolution years before. Her daughter Liliana grieving the breakup with her long time partner, takes on the task of searching out what happened to her brother.
In multiple time lines, the novel takes us back to the 1940’s when Pepa and her family leave Austria seeking refuge in El Castillo, Nicaragua. There aren’t a lot of references to Pepa’s family life in Austria, yet we know why they left. They are Jews. “But when the real danger came, when they started taking people away and smashing store windows....” And we know the horrors of the Holocaust as Pepa’s father lost his first family in the Nazi death camps and later in Pepa’s job at a Jewish newspaper where she works to connect people with their missing loved ones.
In Nicaragua, Pepa’s parents, both doctors, take on the fight with yellow fever. While they are off to various places, teenage Pepa and her brother are frequently left alone to manage on their own, but not without Pepa facing a trial of her own. The worst of which is the traumatic choice her parents make for her. Then they leave for New York, with Pepa leaving behind the boy she loves. In another time line, we meet her son, William, while fighting in the Revolution and as fate would have it, connects with Pepa’s past as does Liliana in the present.
In her acknowledgments, Anne Raeff says: “This book has a long history that begins with the stories my grandparents and mother told me about their years as refugees, first in Panama and then in Bolivia. These stories inspired not only my writing but my life...” . For me this made the novel all the more meaningful. I also very much enjoyed Raeff’s thought provoking and moving novel Winter Kept Us Warm, equally well written.
I received a copy of this book from Counterpoint through Edelweiss.
In multiple time lines, the novel takes us back to the 1940’s when Pepa and her family leave Austria seeking refuge in El Castillo, Nicaragua. There aren’t a lot of references to Pepa’s family life in Austria, yet we know why they left. They are Jews. “But when the real danger came, when they started taking people away and smashing store windows....” And we know the horrors of the Holocaust as Pepa’s father lost his first family in the Nazi death camps and later in Pepa’s job at a Jewish newspaper where she works to connect people with their missing loved ones.
In Nicaragua, Pepa’s parents, both doctors, take on the fight with yellow fever. While they are off to various places, teenage Pepa and her brother are frequently left alone to manage on their own, but not without Pepa facing a trial of her own. The worst of which is the traumatic choice her parents make for her. Then they leave for New York, with Pepa leaving behind the boy she loves. In another time line, we meet her son, William, while fighting in the Revolution and as fate would have it, connects with Pepa’s past as does Liliana in the present.
In her acknowledgments, Anne Raeff says: “This book has a long history that begins with the stories my grandparents and mother told me about their years as refugees, first in Panama and then in Bolivia. These stories inspired not only my writing but my life...” . For me this made the novel all the more meaningful. I also very much enjoyed Raeff’s thought provoking and moving novel Winter Kept Us Warm, equally well written.
I received a copy of this book from Counterpoint through Edelweiss.
May 22, 2020
I waded into this story a little apprehensive but by the time I got 60 pages in, I was hooked. It’s a multigenerational novel about a Jewish family escaping the Nazi’s by living in Nicaragua first, then New York City. Pepa and her family move to Nicaragua, intent on delivering and facilitating the yellow fever vaccine. Once there, she meets Guillermo with whom she falls in love with but is cruelty separated from when the family moves back to New York City. As the war in Nicaragua becomes more intense, Guillermo’s daughter becomes a revolutionary, while Pepa’s son joins the Revolution, only to disappear into the jungle. Knowing the background of what was happening during that time would be really helpful to understanding this novel. Honestly, I think not knowing basic information until after I read the book, took away some of those emotional scenes for me. I loved the way showcases the politics of what was happening during that time as well, making sure to specifically highlight the fact that this was really just another skirmish in the Cold War. The novel highlights just how wrong the United States did the people of this country and I look forward to educating myself further. All in all, it’s a heartfelt, gut-wrenching novel that has a Notebook-worthy romance in it.
April 14, 2020
I don't generally enjoy multi-generational family sagas. I prefer novels that take a narrower focus and really sink in to a particular perspective. Only the River, bu Anne Raeff, is an exception to that generalization for two reasons.
Reason 1: Only the River focuses on two seldom-depicted historical moments: the dispersion of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany to unexpected destinations, in this case Nicaragua, and the impact of the Sandinista-Contra conflict on the lives of Nicaraguan villagers.
Reason 2: The multiple and very specific perspectives Raeff makes use of in this novel.
Only the River has its origins in the experiences of Raeff's own family, though their destination wasn't Nicaragua. A Jewish (by descent, not by active practice) husband and wife team of doctors are able to get visas to Nicaragua because the country is attempting to eradicate yellow fever and needs more medical workers. Because the parents are traveling to isolated villages, their children Pepa and Kurt are alone much of the time. Readers don't learn much about Kurt, but we see Pepa shaping her own life without the usual restrictions faced by young women. Pepa falls in love with Guillermo, one of the villagers, and the two plan to build a life together, but those hopes are blocked. A generation later, Pepa's son William becomes an idealistic volunteer with the Sandinistas. The paths of all these characters—and more—cross in ways that create a complex web of loyalties, with each person holding a part of the picture, but with no one seeing the whole.
The narrative moves among perspectives. Pepa, her daughter Liliana, her son William, Guillermo, and Guillermo's daughter Federika become the focus at different points. Raeff depicts each of these characters with precision, creating unique individuals whose foibles shape their lives in unexpected ways.
Only the River is a must-read title.
I received a free electronic review copy of the novel from the publisher via EdelweissPlus. The opinions are my own.
Reason 1: Only the River focuses on two seldom-depicted historical moments: the dispersion of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany to unexpected destinations, in this case Nicaragua, and the impact of the Sandinista-Contra conflict on the lives of Nicaraguan villagers.
Reason 2: The multiple and very specific perspectives Raeff makes use of in this novel.
Only the River has its origins in the experiences of Raeff's own family, though their destination wasn't Nicaragua. A Jewish (by descent, not by active practice) husband and wife team of doctors are able to get visas to Nicaragua because the country is attempting to eradicate yellow fever and needs more medical workers. Because the parents are traveling to isolated villages, their children Pepa and Kurt are alone much of the time. Readers don't learn much about Kurt, but we see Pepa shaping her own life without the usual restrictions faced by young women. Pepa falls in love with Guillermo, one of the villagers, and the two plan to build a life together, but those hopes are blocked. A generation later, Pepa's son William becomes an idealistic volunteer with the Sandinistas. The paths of all these characters—and more—cross in ways that create a complex web of loyalties, with each person holding a part of the picture, but with no one seeing the whole.
The narrative moves among perspectives. Pepa, her daughter Liliana, her son William, Guillermo, and Guillermo's daughter Federika become the focus at different points. Raeff depicts each of these characters with precision, creating unique individuals whose foibles shape their lives in unexpected ways.
Only the River is a must-read title.
I received a free electronic review copy of the novel from the publisher via EdelweissPlus. The opinions are my own.
March 7, 2022
Rounded down to 2.5.
Only the River has a bit of magical realism to it mostly in the tone of the work rather than events.
People appear and disappear. The themes of the novel are refugees and their children. There is an intense longing for belonging and home but once the bond has been broken the children become seekers as well.
If the work had less characters and concentrated more on the remaining characters the focus would have been greater and less diffuse. The symbols of the river and the jaguar are ever present in the work. Originally the work had interest for me because of the lesser known flight of European Jews to Latin America and as the work evolved these were the least explored characters. I enjoyed this book but never became totally engrossed in it.
Only the River has a bit of magical realism to it mostly in the tone of the work rather than events.
People appear and disappear. The themes of the novel are refugees and their children. There is an intense longing for belonging and home but once the bond has been broken the children become seekers as well.
If the work had less characters and concentrated more on the remaining characters the focus would have been greater and less diffuse. The symbols of the river and the jaguar are ever present in the work. Originally the work had interest for me because of the lesser known flight of European Jews to Latin America and as the work evolved these were the least explored characters. I enjoyed this book but never became totally engrossed in it.
May 16, 2020
A hypnotic, insightful, vivid story of love, family, war, and betrayal. Members of two intertwined families—including a pair of doctors, refugees from Europe who emigrate to Nicaragua and then to New York with their children—form and break relationships. There are love stories here, across the generations, as well as friendships, sibling bonds, and economic ties. I finished this extraordinary novel a couple of days ago and am still living inside it. I never wanted to leave its rich, splendid, engrossing world and all of the complicated, vulnerable, intensely human characters. I am a big fan of Anne Raeff’s fiction and loved this new novel.
As a reader obsessed by war and its aftermath, I was gripped by the ways that this novel takes on the questions of territory, political interference, loyalty, blood hunger, pride, sacrifice, and the almost casual waste and destruction war sheds in every direction. The book creates so much tension between the work that the doctors do to try to stop yellow fever, and then the other fever, the fever of war, a dark counterbalance. There are compelling quests and side stories all the way through, along with fascinating explorations of fear, courage, cowardice, and what the characters lean on to make themselves braver.
The book is so insightful and varied in its depiction of different kinds of love: a wild youthful physical love that’s close to the earth, to the ground; a damaged love that doesn't survive betrayal; a tender but not sentimental love in old age; an often illusory love that survives decades as a shadow (or ghost) of what might have been. There are so many kinds of betrayal here, too, along with all of the kinds of love: parents to children and children to parents, erotic and romantic, historical and personal. The book inhabits numerous viewpoints, and the graceful, easy movement from one character to another, one moment in time to another, seems at home in this dream of a rich green world, the glory of swimming in the treacherous river, the nearly magical presence of the animals in the jungle, the monkeys, caiman, and jaguar.
I look forward to reading it again and will be thinking about it for a long time to come. I hope this wonderful novel will find many readers who will be nourished by its winding, exacting, sensuous, mixture of dreamlike atmosphere and the very real people and events. A stunning feat.
As a reader obsessed by war and its aftermath, I was gripped by the ways that this novel takes on the questions of territory, political interference, loyalty, blood hunger, pride, sacrifice, and the almost casual waste and destruction war sheds in every direction. The book creates so much tension between the work that the doctors do to try to stop yellow fever, and then the other fever, the fever of war, a dark counterbalance. There are compelling quests and side stories all the way through, along with fascinating explorations of fear, courage, cowardice, and what the characters lean on to make themselves braver.
The book is so insightful and varied in its depiction of different kinds of love: a wild youthful physical love that’s close to the earth, to the ground; a damaged love that doesn't survive betrayal; a tender but not sentimental love in old age; an often illusory love that survives decades as a shadow (or ghost) of what might have been. There are so many kinds of betrayal here, too, along with all of the kinds of love: parents to children and children to parents, erotic and romantic, historical and personal. The book inhabits numerous viewpoints, and the graceful, easy movement from one character to another, one moment in time to another, seems at home in this dream of a rich green world, the glory of swimming in the treacherous river, the nearly magical presence of the animals in the jungle, the monkeys, caiman, and jaguar.
I look forward to reading it again and will be thinking about it for a long time to come. I hope this wonderful novel will find many readers who will be nourished by its winding, exacting, sensuous, mixture of dreamlike atmosphere and the very real people and events. A stunning feat.
January 19, 2020
This is a story that expands generations and countries, from Nicaragua to New York. A doctor couple moves to Nicaragua to eradicate yellow fever while the war between the contras and sandinistas rages on. Relationships are formed and despite relocating to New York, the children and grandchildren born to the couple find themselves drawn back to Nicaragua.
Only the River is told through different voices and at times I had to look back and remind myself which character was telling their story. The past and future sometimes changed abruptly and it took me reading a few paragraphs to realize when and what was going on. I enjoyed the book, however, and found the writing to be passionate, expressive and lyrical.
Thank you to NetGalley and publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.
Only the River is told through different voices and at times I had to look back and remind myself which character was telling their story. The past and future sometimes changed abruptly and it took me reading a few paragraphs to realize when and what was going on. I enjoyed the book, however, and found the writing to be passionate, expressive and lyrical.
Thank you to NetGalley and publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.
July 4, 2020
This is a good book but the story was told in a too confusing way so that it is hard to understand what is happening. Different generations, different countries but strong characters with interesting lives.
May 26, 2020
A beautiful novel spanning decades and continents, Only the River follows a Jewish family who fled WWII Vienna for the safety of Nicaragua, and then a few years later to New York City. But not before their young daughter Pepa has formed a strong bond with the jungle and its river, and with Guillermo, a boy from the village. Decades later, Pepa's and Guillermo's families intersect again when Pepa's daughter Liliana returns to the country to determine what happened to her brother William, presumed to have been killed when he joined the fight against the Contras in the 1980's. With lyrical prose and lush descriptions of the setting, Raeff moves smoothly between multiple point-of-view characters to create an unforgettable inter-generational family saga.
June 1, 2020
Seventy years after World War II, we are still being surprised by how far flung was its impact. Jews trying to escape Europe reached out to any and all countries for visas. Pepa's physician parents manage to get visas to Nicaragua, to work battling yellow fever in a remote area. Pepa and her brother are pretty much abandoned there while her parents move deeper in the jungle for their work. They're kids, they make friends, especially Guillermo, with whom Pepa will have a special relationship. The family finally gets a visa for New York and off they go. It seems that's it for Nicaragua.
Except it is not.
Members of the family will be drawn back to that country town for decades.
"Only the River" is a beautifully written novel that brings to light two seminal events--the escape of Jews from Europe, and the impact of the Contra war on Nicaraguans across that country. Anne Raeff has written with immediacy and delicacy about how history informs the present.
Except it is not.
Members of the family will be drawn back to that country town for decades.
"Only the River" is a beautifully written novel that brings to light two seminal events--the escape of Jews from Europe, and the impact of the Contra war on Nicaraguans across that country. Anne Raeff has written with immediacy and delicacy about how history informs the present.
August 5, 2020
Tedious. Mistakes dreariness for depth. This is one of those books where characters are constantly doing things because of some whim that they do not understand or attempt to understand, ranging from lying about seeing a jaguar in the jungle to things that have very serious consequences for other people. But they do them just because...and then they do another thing, and then they do another thing… and another thing.
Yeah, real people do things without always being honest about their own motivations, but they still have motivations and it can be interesting for the reader to puzzle them out. But most of these characters acted in too similar a manner to ever get an understanding for them as separate people. Most of them came off as very weak people who just drifted along doing whatever they were told to do until they randomly decided to change course and leave other people in the lurch without warning. They all just came of as incredibly shallow and immature.
The author was probably trying to say something to do with the central metaphor of the river, about how people’s lives flow into one another and smooth waters turning into rapids, yada yada yada… but it was like reading a book where every character is Shinji Ikari.
Yeah, real people do things without always being honest about their own motivations, but they still have motivations and it can be interesting for the reader to puzzle them out. But most of these characters acted in too similar a manner to ever get an understanding for them as separate people. Most of them came off as very weak people who just drifted along doing whatever they were told to do until they randomly decided to change course and leave other people in the lurch without warning. They all just came of as incredibly shallow and immature.
The author was probably trying to say something to do with the central metaphor of the river, about how people’s lives flow into one another and smooth waters turning into rapids, yada yada yada… but it was like reading a book where every character is Shinji Ikari.
August 4, 2020
I won this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway. The synopsis made it sound interesting, so I entered the giveaway. Simply put, I wish I hadn't. It was absolutely dreadful. None of the characters were particularly likeable, and the storyline that bound them together was never fully developed. It was so difficult to get into that it took me over three weeks to finish it. I honestly wish I hadn't wasted my time.
May 26, 2020
This book had an excellent review in The Washington Post, but the reality was a disjointed and meandering book that left me, at the end, wondering why I took this ride at all.
June 22, 2020
For me, during this time of COVID it has been hard to focus and I am thankful to find a book that helps me escape what is currently happening in our world, if only for a moment. Only The River by Anne Raeff did exactly that, took me to another time and place, the jungles of Nicaragua.
Oskar escaped the holocaust, but his wife and children did not. Pepa is raised in Nicaragua as a child and then is forced to move back to New York once her parents have finished their work eradicating yellow fever. Pepa is devastated when she must leave Guillermo the love of her life to move back to New York with her parents. She eventually makes a life for herself in New York, marries Oskar, but never forgets her childhood in El Castillo and never forgets her first love,
William and Liliana , Pepa and Oskar’s children are shaped by the fact that their families were refugees, and refugees come from all the violent places on the earth. William decides to leave New York, against his parents wishes and goes to El Salvador in 1982 to fight in the revolution because he believes “The battle for freedom is everyone’s battle.” His family is told that he dies but his body is never found.
Only The River is a multigenerational story about refugees, about children of a holocaust survivor and how their lives are shaped and affected by what their father has lived through and where their mother grew up. Anne Raeff has written an insightful, moving, beautiful story and I look forward to reading more books by her.
Oskar escaped the holocaust, but his wife and children did not. Pepa is raised in Nicaragua as a child and then is forced to move back to New York once her parents have finished their work eradicating yellow fever. Pepa is devastated when she must leave Guillermo the love of her life to move back to New York with her parents. She eventually makes a life for herself in New York, marries Oskar, but never forgets her childhood in El Castillo and never forgets her first love,
William and Liliana , Pepa and Oskar’s children are shaped by the fact that their families were refugees, and refugees come from all the violent places on the earth. William decides to leave New York, against his parents wishes and goes to El Salvador in 1982 to fight in the revolution because he believes “The battle for freedom is everyone’s battle.” His family is told that he dies but his body is never found.
Only The River is a multigenerational story about refugees, about children of a holocaust survivor and how their lives are shaped and affected by what their father has lived through and where their mother grew up. Anne Raeff has written an insightful, moving, beautiful story and I look forward to reading more books by her.
June 8, 2020
Raeff’s previous novel Winter Kept Us Warm featured three captivating central characters that had me invested in their every struggle over several decades. Now with Only the River she undertakes another ambitious, multigenerational family saga involving a wider cast of characters that prove both intriguing and strange with how they endure hardships.
Pepa’s family escapes Nazi persecution in Vienna by finding refuge in Nicaragua. As doctors, her parents commit to helping inoculate the country from yellow fever. Pepa develops a relationship with a boy named Guillermo in the small town of El Castillo, but when her family relocates in America, she keeps secrets from Guillermo when she leaves. Decades later, Pepa’s daughter Liliana heads back to Nicaragua in search of answers to her brother William’s disappearance after he decided to leave America and return to Nicaragua to fight with the Sandinistas. Guillermo’s daughter Federica had also decades earlier joined the revolutionary cause.
The eventual merging of the families over time and due to the circumstances of war is wonderfully conceived and meticulously plotted. What makes Only the River intriguing with how the families connect also makes it elusive in the way the characters come off almost like specters in the oddness of their reactions and behaviors. Indeed, an aura of mysteriousness pervades Raeff’s entire narrative, and this mood generates an effectiveness with conveying the ravishing impact of heartache, loss, and remembrance. The breadth of the storyline and the novel’s fine prose kept me invested, even though the idiosyncrasies of the characters left me puzzled.
Raeff is an author I like very much, and I’ll be interested in whatever she does next because the literary quality of both Winter Kept Us Warm and Only the River make them worthy of a reader’s time.
Pepa’s family escapes Nazi persecution in Vienna by finding refuge in Nicaragua. As doctors, her parents commit to helping inoculate the country from yellow fever. Pepa develops a relationship with a boy named Guillermo in the small town of El Castillo, but when her family relocates in America, she keeps secrets from Guillermo when she leaves. Decades later, Pepa’s daughter Liliana heads back to Nicaragua in search of answers to her brother William’s disappearance after he decided to leave America and return to Nicaragua to fight with the Sandinistas. Guillermo’s daughter Federica had also decades earlier joined the revolutionary cause.
The eventual merging of the families over time and due to the circumstances of war is wonderfully conceived and meticulously plotted. What makes Only the River intriguing with how the families connect also makes it elusive in the way the characters come off almost like specters in the oddness of their reactions and behaviors. Indeed, an aura of mysteriousness pervades Raeff’s entire narrative, and this mood generates an effectiveness with conveying the ravishing impact of heartache, loss, and remembrance. The breadth of the storyline and the novel’s fine prose kept me invested, even though the idiosyncrasies of the characters left me puzzled.
Raeff is an author I like very much, and I’ll be interested in whatever she does next because the literary quality of both Winter Kept Us Warm and Only the River make them worthy of a reader’s time.
March 18, 2022
I wish the stories had been wrapped up more succinctly, another one too much like real life. It was a little hard to follow, somewhat fragmented and It just sort of stopped. Still preferable to the too many supernatural stuff I have read.
May 17, 2020
I really enjoyed Only the River. I'm really big on setting, and this one was set in a Nicaraguan jungle, taking place over a few generations. I loved being in that world, and I miss the feel of being there now that the book is done. The storylines of various characters swirl and wind around each other in a way that feels matched to the setting. Young love, mature love, war, grief, youthful idealism -- they all blend and leave me feeling wistful. It was a lovely read.
April 29, 2020
This is a winding twining story of two families, with an emphasis on Nicaragua. Pepa's parents, both physicians, found safe harbor for the family in Nicaragua and in doing so, set a course for Pepa's life. She, along with her brother Kurt (who seems almost an afterthought) are left alone while the parents travel to villages. She develops a relationship with Guillermo which will be more important than she can know. Flash forward (not really, but...) and his daughter and her son are on a trajectory as the Sandinista movement grows. It's told from different POVs and has a great setting. It helps, I think, if you know a bit about Nicaragua and the politics of the period (easily remedied with a little internet research). Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read for fans of literary fiction.
June 6, 2020
A novel that spans decades and continents, Pepa is from a Jewish family who fled WWII Vienna for the safety of Nicaragua, and then a few years later to New York City. While in Nicaragua, Pepa and Guillermo, a boy from the village become inseparable. They spend their time with each other in the jungle and along the river. Two adult Germans males live in the outskirts of the village and Pepa and Guillermo become friends with them.Decades past and Pepa's and Guillermo's families intersect again when Pepa's daughter Liliana returns to the country to determine what happened to her brother William, presumed to have been killed when he joined the fight against the Contras in the 1980.
The story is told by multiple individuals and goes back and forth. A well written multigenerational novel.
I received this book from Goodreads in exchange for a review. Would definitely recommend it.
The story is told by multiple individuals and goes back and forth. A well written multigenerational novel.
I received this book from Goodreads in exchange for a review. Would definitely recommend it.
June 13, 2020
Only the River, by Anne Raeff, is a multigenerational story of a Jewish family forced to flee to Nicaragua to evade the Germans in Vienna. The descriptions of life in Nicaragua, the people, the landscape and river was richly told, and the writing can only be described as beautiful. The author expertly interweaves the Sandinista/Contra conflict and its affect on individuals and villages.
I greatly enjoyed this book and will be looking for more from Raeff. I thank the author and publisher for the Kindle copy I received from Goodreads Giveaways.
I greatly enjoyed this book and will be looking for more from Raeff. I thank the author and publisher for the Kindle copy I received from Goodreads Giveaways.
March 23, 2020
I have finally learned that it is OK to not finish a book, I got 30% into this one and I gave up and started flipping thru the rest of it, it didn’t seem to improve. I do not enjoy reading books with the writing technique of “he said”, then “she said”. One other con factor was the beginning, it started out with so many different characters introduced all at once with no background to piece them into the story that I don’t think I ever figured out who everyone was. This one just did not work for me.
The one positive note, I truly respected her parents for their determination and desire to go into these environments to help and assist medically with disease prevention and education. People that have that capability are heroes, true heroes. I wish the story would have been more fluid.
I was allowed an ARC from Counterpoint Press and NetGalley for my honest unbiased review. This one earned 2 stars.
The one positive note, I truly respected her parents for their determination and desire to go into these environments to help and assist medically with disease prevention and education. People that have that capability are heroes, true heroes. I wish the story would have been more fluid.
I was allowed an ARC from Counterpoint Press and NetGalley for my honest unbiased review. This one earned 2 stars.
September 30, 2020
I really enjoyed this book. It kept my interest, and I found it hard to put down.
August 6, 2020
Only the River is such a great book! Fascinating intertwined post-WWII history, riveting plot and brave and wonderful characters. I read it fast because I had to find out what happened, and then I read it again for Raeff’s beautiful, evocative writing.
May 28, 2020
Audio. I appreciate the historical information in this book, the storyline was a bit difficult to follow while listening on audio. It ends, in my opinion, very abruptly.
June 2, 2020
Confusing
Too many characters and stories and timeline jumping for me to keep straight. All was wasted buy not really having a conclusion. Overall I’m confused and disappointed.
Too many characters and stories and timeline jumping for me to keep straight. All was wasted buy not really having a conclusion. Overall I’m confused and disappointed.
August 4, 2020
Did not really like this book. Too verbose and the story was a bit disjointed. Not really a topic I was too interested in. Could not wait to finish it/ I hate not to finish a 📖 book.
August 13, 2020
Audiobook version is very difficult to follow. Chapter headings that include a date would be helpful.
September 9, 2023
Anne Raeff reminds me of Isabel Allende and, at times, Only the River flows like the prose of Gabriel García Márquez.
Aside from their shared Latin American roots, Allende and Raeff both live in San Francisco. I don’t know how much the circumstances of where people are from or where they live shapes how they write. But I have no other way of explaining the strong-willed women, the struggling men and the powerful forces of nature that surge through both authors’ writing.
Though Raeff’s story takes place in Nicaragua, she writes in her acknowledgements, “This book has a long history that begins with the stories my grandparents and mother told me about their years as refugees, first in Panama and then in Bolivia.”
Allende has, of course, written extensively about her home country of Chile (i.e. The Long Petal of the Sea) all of them multi-generational sagas – such as Raeff achieves with Only the River.
Fleeing Austria after it joined forces with Nazi Germany, Pepa and her parents flee to Nicaragua at the beginning of WWII. Doctors specializing in infectious diseases, her parents were invited to the U.S. at the end of the war.
Pepa was still a teenager when she arrived in New York, but she never forgot Guillermo or the magic of the river that ran through El Castillo. As the story unfolds, it’s as though she injected Nicaragua into her children’s veins. First, William who impulsively heads there to join the Sandinista’s resistance to Contras. Then, Liliana follows a decade later trying to find out what happened to William.
So many marvelous characters. Guillermo becomes such a good reliable man, holding the rest of El Castillo together. His daughter, Federica survives her search for William, survives the war and survives the crash of the plane she was piloting. All of them – Pepa, Guillermo, Liliana, William and Federica – are sanctified, emboldened and enlightened by the power of the river that flows through El Castillo, Nicaragua.
No one was better at evoking nature entwined with the human spirit than Gabriel García Márquez. Anne Raeff taps the essence of that theme.
Aside from their shared Latin American roots, Allende and Raeff both live in San Francisco. I don’t know how much the circumstances of where people are from or where they live shapes how they write. But I have no other way of explaining the strong-willed women, the struggling men and the powerful forces of nature that surge through both authors’ writing.
Though Raeff’s story takes place in Nicaragua, she writes in her acknowledgements, “This book has a long history that begins with the stories my grandparents and mother told me about their years as refugees, first in Panama and then in Bolivia.”
Allende has, of course, written extensively about her home country of Chile (i.e. The Long Petal of the Sea) all of them multi-generational sagas – such as Raeff achieves with Only the River.
Fleeing Austria after it joined forces with Nazi Germany, Pepa and her parents flee to Nicaragua at the beginning of WWII. Doctors specializing in infectious diseases, her parents were invited to the U.S. at the end of the war.
Pepa was still a teenager when she arrived in New York, but she never forgot Guillermo or the magic of the river that ran through El Castillo. As the story unfolds, it’s as though she injected Nicaragua into her children’s veins. First, William who impulsively heads there to join the Sandinista’s resistance to Contras. Then, Liliana follows a decade later trying to find out what happened to William.
So many marvelous characters. Guillermo becomes such a good reliable man, holding the rest of El Castillo together. His daughter, Federica survives her search for William, survives the war and survives the crash of the plane she was piloting. All of them – Pepa, Guillermo, Liliana, William and Federica – are sanctified, emboldened and enlightened by the power of the river that flows through El Castillo, Nicaragua.
No one was better at evoking nature entwined with the human spirit than Gabriel García Márquez. Anne Raeff taps the essence of that theme.
July 28, 2020
This could be rated a 2.5. or so. I was not pleased with the author's use of flashback, fast -forwards and changes in time periods and locations. I began to read it a story like some of the South American authors, as magical realism. What this book lacked for me was a clear direction, plot, etc. I guess the river is the main character- but I was not thrilled with the love- crazed/ lovesick/ non-realistic characters that wove in and out of the story. I had a hard time identifying or feeling connected to the multiple characters that peopled this book. Honesty, truth, integrity, compassion, a purpose in life seemed to be lost in this book..
June 30, 2021
“…she thought of what her mother said that the difference between people who live in El Castillo and Manhattan is that people in El Castillo know that the world outside their tiny patch of earth is enormous and full of things they do not understand or even know exist, but New Yorkers think that their tiny island contains within it all that there is to know.” Chapter 20, Page 261
July 19, 2025
Beautifully written, epic in scope but intimate in feel. The generational effects of war and trauma play out in a sweeping but unmelodramatic way. The way Anne Raeff handles the flow of time and characters (very in keeping with the river in question, which is a character in its own right) will stay with me. Highly recommended.
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