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Where the Rivers Flow North
The stories of Where the Rivers Flow North are “superior work, rich in texture and character,” says the Wall Street Journal; “the novella is brilliantly done.” That novella, the title story of the collection, was also made into a feature film starring Rip Torn and Michael J. Fox. These six stories, available again in this new edition, continue Mosher’s career-long exploration of Kingdom County, Vermont. “Within the borders of his fictional kingdom,” the Providence Journal has noted, “Mosher has created mountains and rivers, timber forests and crossroads villages, history and language. And he has peopled the landscape with some of the truest, most memorable characters in contemporary literature.”
216 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
11 people are currently reading
327 people want to read
About the author
Howard Frank Mosher
22 books159 followers Howard Frank Mosher was an American author. Over the course of his career, Mr. Mosher published 12 novels, two memoirs and countless essays and book reviews. In addition, his last work of fiction, points North will be published by St. Martin's press in the winter of 2018.
Mosher was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1979. A Stranger In the Kingdom won the New England Book Award for Fiction in 1991, and was later filmed by director Jay Craven. In 2006, Mosher received the Vermont Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts. In 2011 he was awarded the New England Independent Booksellers Association's President's Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Mosher was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1979. A Stranger In the Kingdom won the New England Book Award for Fiction in 1991, and was later filmed by director Jay Craven. In 2006, Mosher received the Vermont Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts. In 2011 he was awarded the New England Independent Booksellers Association's President's Award for Lifetime Achievement.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
February 20, 2018
The book consists of six short stories and one novella. The stories come first and are the following:
Alabama Jones
Burl
First Snow
The Peacock
Highwater
Kingdom County Come
My average rating for the six was only two stars. Only one, the last one, would I classify as nature writing, which is what I thought I would be getting. The last story was my favorite. Having liked it, I have given it three stars. It is about a man who is dying. He canoes and walks off alone into the wilderness, in a place called Lord’s Bog. The other stories left me totally cold. Basically, they said nothing to me. All are on the depressing side.
The novella, bearing the book’s title, follows the stories. It is about the elderly Noel and his housekeeper, Bangor. They live in the fictional Kingdom County of northeastern Vermont. The year is 1927. A dam is to be built. Noel’s property, which has belonged to his ancestors since the 1700s, will be covered with water….if the damn dam is built! Should he sell out? Should he move to Oregon? What will be the fate of his beloved land, of wilderness and untouched nature in the years to come? Logging and hunting is what he has always done. The land is what he knows. Without it, who is he?
The novella is sort of a continuation of the previous story entitled Kingdom County Come, the story I liked. In the novella, I liked the portrayal of the relationship between Noel and his housekeeper. The relationship is shown to be deeper than what is merely visible on the surface.
On the minus side, I found the novella to be confusing, primarily because of the numerous water-control and lumber trade terms used. The region’s dialect confused me too; the names used for fauna are those I am not acquainted with. Sure, you understand after a while, but when listening, as I was, you do loose information. There is a long section about Noel’s ancestors; here the story feels “told” rather than lived.
When I have pointed out what I liked about the novella, it is what I have come up with after searching; I simply did not enjoy the tale all that much as I listened. Parts are exciting. It is an action-filled adventure tale at the end. There are some lyrical lines about nature. It was OK, so I am giving it two stars, which is how I feel about the entire book and the narration too.
The audiobook is narrated by Pat Bottino. In two of the stories the central protagonist is a woman. There is also Bangor, who plays an important role in the novella. This narrator does not come close to sounding like a woman, not ever and not even the sturdy, down-to-earth, tough women portrayed in Howard Frank Mosher’s writing. Neither does the narrator pause when he should pause. I could understand the words (minus the dialect) so I could call the narration OK.
I was looking forward to this book like mad; I thought it would be much, much better. In this respect it was a disappointment.
Alabama Jones
Burl
First Snow
The Peacock
Highwater
Kingdom County Come
My average rating for the six was only two stars. Only one, the last one, would I classify as nature writing, which is what I thought I would be getting. The last story was my favorite. Having liked it, I have given it three stars. It is about a man who is dying. He canoes and walks off alone into the wilderness, in a place called Lord’s Bog. The other stories left me totally cold. Basically, they said nothing to me. All are on the depressing side.
The novella, bearing the book’s title, follows the stories. It is about the elderly Noel and his housekeeper, Bangor. They live in the fictional Kingdom County of northeastern Vermont. The year is 1927. A dam is to be built. Noel’s property, which has belonged to his ancestors since the 1700s, will be covered with water….if the damn dam is built! Should he sell out? Should he move to Oregon? What will be the fate of his beloved land, of wilderness and untouched nature in the years to come? Logging and hunting is what he has always done. The land is what he knows. Without it, who is he?
The novella is sort of a continuation of the previous story entitled Kingdom County Come, the story I liked. In the novella, I liked the portrayal of the relationship between Noel and his housekeeper. The relationship is shown to be deeper than what is merely visible on the surface.
On the minus side, I found the novella to be confusing, primarily because of the numerous water-control and lumber trade terms used. The region’s dialect confused me too; the names used for fauna are those I am not acquainted with. Sure, you understand after a while, but when listening, as I was, you do loose information. There is a long section about Noel’s ancestors; here the story feels “told” rather than lived.
When I have pointed out what I liked about the novella, it is what I have come up with after searching; I simply did not enjoy the tale all that much as I listened. Parts are exciting. It is an action-filled adventure tale at the end. There are some lyrical lines about nature. It was OK, so I am giving it two stars, which is how I feel about the entire book and the narration too.
The audiobook is narrated by Pat Bottino. In two of the stories the central protagonist is a woman. There is also Bangor, who plays an important role in the novella. This narrator does not come close to sounding like a woman, not ever and not even the sturdy, down-to-earth, tough women portrayed in Howard Frank Mosher’s writing. Neither does the narrator pause when he should pause. I could understand the words (minus the dialect) so I could call the narration OK.
I was looking forward to this book like mad; I thought it would be much, much better. In this respect it was a disappointment.
September 1, 2020
I wasn’t crazy about any of these stories, but they were made much worse by the narrator of the audiobook, Pat Bottino. He was particularly awful with female characters.
May 25, 2017
Nominated this one for book club in honor of Howard Frank Mosher's passing away earlier this year. I'd encountered him twice for work and found him kind and charming in person, but had yet to read him.
Where the Rivers Flow North encompasses the titular novella and a handful of stories, all of which beautifully encapsulate a certain way of life in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, the kind of life that were one to wander that way today, you might find some (or many) aspects of it unchanged.
Mosher in particular captures the distinctly New England attitude of being standoffish or curt, yet also possessing a somewhat hidden warmth, a willingness to help your neighbor in a dire situation. It's fascinating to me as it feels like a cousin of "the Seattle Freeze," from my state, which I think stems more from a social awkwardness by way of the tech industry and the PNW just being full of weirdo nerds, whereas the New England attitude seems to originate more from a privacy/mind your own business way of life.
Like the people he portrays, Mosher's writing is blunt and beautiful, harsh but not without soul.
Where the Rivers Flow North encompasses the titular novella and a handful of stories, all of which beautifully encapsulate a certain way of life in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, the kind of life that were one to wander that way today, you might find some (or many) aspects of it unchanged.
Mosher in particular captures the distinctly New England attitude of being standoffish or curt, yet also possessing a somewhat hidden warmth, a willingness to help your neighbor in a dire situation. It's fascinating to me as it feels like a cousin of "the Seattle Freeze," from my state, which I think stems more from a social awkwardness by way of the tech industry and the PNW just being full of weirdo nerds, whereas the New England attitude seems to originate more from a privacy/mind your own business way of life.
Like the people he portrays, Mosher's writing is blunt and beautiful, harsh but not without soul.
March 22, 2012
Remember the Saturday Night Live skit "Who's More Grizzled?" with Robert Duvall playing a former sharecropper from Mississippi and Tate Mitchum who worked on an off shore oil rig until he broke his back? Well those guys were soft c*cks compared to Mosher's main character Noel Lord, old time Vermont mountain logger/moonshiner.
While Ken Kesey created a similar story in SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION with his Stamper family, you get the feeling Kesey did it all for effect. But somehow, you know Howard Frank Mosher *knows* these backwoods guys who still trade furs for coffee, sugar, and tobacco on their twice yearly ride into town. Not only does he *know* them, he's probably one of the few townies these old f*cks will bother passing a word with on the street. So maybe, as a person, I'm not nearly grizzled enough for a crotchety hook handed log driver to bother with. But as a reader, I can be part of his world for a day or two. I can marvel at the simplicity, the brutality, and the forgotten and probably wasted woodsman code of honor for enough pages to wish for a different sort of life.
While Ken Kesey created a similar story in SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION with his Stamper family, you get the feeling Kesey did it all for effect. But somehow, you know Howard Frank Mosher *knows* these backwoods guys who still trade furs for coffee, sugar, and tobacco on their twice yearly ride into town. Not only does he *know* them, he's probably one of the few townies these old f*cks will bother passing a word with on the street. So maybe, as a person, I'm not nearly grizzled enough for a crotchety hook handed log driver to bother with. But as a reader, I can be part of his world for a day or two. I can marvel at the simplicity, the brutality, and the forgotten and probably wasted woodsman code of honor for enough pages to wish for a different sort of life.
April 2, 2017
Where the Rivers Flow North by Howard Frank Mosher (205 pages)
Howard Frank Mosher’s collection of short stories and a novella is infused with hardscrabble, tough characters that are part of the hard land they work in a Sisyphusian endeavor to survive, and live in a love-hate relationship with that hard and beautiful land. Quiet, backwoods poets and philosophers trying to survive the land they fight and fight for. The prose is local color perfection, character sketches that show the strength, sometimes bitter strength, it takes to work the land and survive not just it, but other people. As someone from old Vermont mountain stock and who has lived here my whole life, never have I read any portrayal of this beautiful land (and our love of it) more utterly perfect. The writing here is Thoreau’s and Robert Frost’s honest love of nature with a poet’s hard eye, it is Steinbeck’s portrayal of humanity and its bonds in worlds were humanity is crueler than nature (the grace in tragedy), and it is Flannery O’Connor’s grotesque beauty. It is also Robert Newton Peck’s understanding of the bonds between man and animal, the pride and affection of hard work, and the start practical nature of nature. It’s a deep love of place and people that others don’t understand. It’s real and it’s poetry. Grade: A
Howard Frank Mosher’s collection of short stories and a novella is infused with hardscrabble, tough characters that are part of the hard land they work in a Sisyphusian endeavor to survive, and live in a love-hate relationship with that hard and beautiful land. Quiet, backwoods poets and philosophers trying to survive the land they fight and fight for. The prose is local color perfection, character sketches that show the strength, sometimes bitter strength, it takes to work the land and survive not just it, but other people. As someone from old Vermont mountain stock and who has lived here my whole life, never have I read any portrayal of this beautiful land (and our love of it) more utterly perfect. The writing here is Thoreau’s and Robert Frost’s honest love of nature with a poet’s hard eye, it is Steinbeck’s portrayal of humanity and its bonds in worlds were humanity is crueler than nature (the grace in tragedy), and it is Flannery O’Connor’s grotesque beauty. It is also Robert Newton Peck’s understanding of the bonds between man and animal, the pride and affection of hard work, and the start practical nature of nature. It’s a deep love of place and people that others don’t understand. It’s real and it’s poetry. Grade: A
October 7, 2018
I am a huge fan of Howard Frank Mosher but this is not my favourite if his books. The six short stories were bleak but unlike some other reviewers I did not find them depressing. More a telling of the hardness if the country and the times. The novella of the title was difficult to follow and sad. Stories don’t have to be fun and uplifting but that novella did not make me want to live in 20th century Vermont.
Read
November 10, 2008Powerful book- especially the title story Where the Rivers Flow North- which is a Novella- and one called Kingdom County Come. Powerful is all I can think of to describe this book. There's history in the stories- some are period pieces delving back to late 19th early 20th century- but they don't read like they're from the past- just from a different time- or a parallel time. The characters where alive. I was there. I could see and smell the woods. My only complaint is that I had a hard time in the last story picturing things like the boom in the pond and the exact nature of river below the log damn. I wouldn't expect the author to explain all these things- it's not a history book or a how-to book- but maybe he could've slipped a few more hints in about what all this logging stuff looks like what it looks like. Even so- I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes short stories.
July 13, 2022
Never heard of Mosher until recently, but found this anthology at the library.
I love regional historical fiction. I live in Maine, but have read widely about my state and North Carolina (where my family settled). I knew little about the Northeast Kingdom (Kingdom County) of Vermont.
What a cast of characters in the six short stories. What a gripping tale of life and resistance in the novella. I think what stays with me are the characters -
Alabama Jones, Burl, the anonymous couple in "The Peacock," Waterman and his boys, Coville and Bangor and Noel...all leap to life, struggle, to awareness and resolve in varying ways.
Mosher captures dialect, typical ways of making a hardscrabble life, hunting and fishing, standing up to civilization and rejecting its demands, living the best you can until you die.
I plan to find more Mosher!
I love regional historical fiction. I live in Maine, but have read widely about my state and North Carolina (where my family settled). I knew little about the Northeast Kingdom (Kingdom County) of Vermont.
What a cast of characters in the six short stories. What a gripping tale of life and resistance in the novella. I think what stays with me are the characters -
Alabama Jones, Burl, the anonymous couple in "The Peacock," Waterman and his boys, Coville and Bangor and Noel...all leap to life, struggle, to awareness and resolve in varying ways.
Mosher captures dialect, typical ways of making a hardscrabble life, hunting and fishing, standing up to civilization and rejecting its demands, living the best you can until you die.
I plan to find more Mosher!
October 28, 2025
Excellent writing. Like the River Runs through it.
10/2025 reading again
10/2025 reading again
September 19, 2020
This collection of short stories and a novella is an easy one day or weekend read. None of them are particularly uplifting, but describe beautifully the determination and cussedness of early 20th century rural northern New Englanders. The novella goes more deeply into the main characters' backstories than does the Rip Torn/Tantoo Cardinal/Michael J Fox movie into which it was adapted, and as with many adaptations reading the story is probably a better use of the 105 minute running time of the film. The short stories ahead of the novella do a good job of getting the reader in the right frame of mind for the tail half of the book. This book is a worthy addition to any "New England fiction" shelf.
August 18, 2018
Maybe a 3.5? I was at first so disappointed in the clichéd characters. But the point(s) of each story was/were so powerful that I ended up mesmerized. Having lived in VT for 25 years (though not in the Northeast Kingdom), I was taken back back back to the smells, the sounds, the visual beauty of the place. Like that of Annie Proulx, Mosher's works evoke so overwhelmingly clearly - a sense of place.
September 24, 2019
Actually, I didn't finish. I read 60 pages and decided there are too many good books to waste time on another Mosher piece of crap. One book discussion group I belong constantly picks Mosher's books to read. His stories are ridiculous with unrealistic characters and plot lines (if any). This book seems to be just a bunch of disjointed stories using the same place settings and characters in his other books. Ugh!
December 31, 2023
Several short stories followed by a novella, all centered on the NE Kingdom region of Vermont. The setting seems to be in the early to mid 20th century as the huge NE logging industry began to change and fade. The characters are tough, self sufficient, and persistent in a difficult environment. An affecting rendering of tough people in tough times
July 11, 2025
Was all together an all right book, the short stories were all somewhat interesting and while some of them tied into the main story, they could’ve all been tied in easily and I don’t really get why they weren’t 🤷🏼♂️
The main story was definitely interesting and had a phenomenal ending. Found it for $3 at a used bookstore and glad I picked it up, but wouldn’t read it again
The main story was definitely interesting and had a phenomenal ending. Found it for $3 at a used bookstore and glad I picked it up, but wouldn’t read it again
August 27, 2017
I love this book which is a collection of short stories and novella about characters at different points in time peopling Moshers fictional Kingdom County VT Th novella especially really touched me.
January 5, 2018
4.5 stars. Mosher knows his subjects -- gritty and as defined & limited as they are by their home ground, they still find the edge of the envelope on how to live in their world. He was a master. I've enjoyed all I've read of his & plan on reading more.
September 3, 2025
I think that I really like regional fiction. The author seems to know Vermont inside and out. Not all the stories were great. But the main story really got going in the second half and I was sad to put it down at the end.
October 8, 2025
A strange one really. I found the short stories a bit forgettable. They were good but they're just so short that you don't really get attached to any characters.
I really liked the novelette and could have read a whole book of that.
I really liked the novelette and could have read a whole book of that.
March 24, 2017
Short stories & a novella set in the NEK. No precious kinfolk here, but plenty of longing, wistful youth and enough death to please even the pickiest reader. Makes me want to go back and read A Stranger In The Kingdom, which is also a movie starring Ernie "Zedmore" Hudson. Small world.
July 24, 2017
Stories about the tough people of northern Vermont.
October 9, 2017
Excellent, regionally-focused (but not provincial) short stories.
August 20, 2018
A beautiful book. A classic. One I'll return to.
July 12, 2019
So depressing and couldn’t get into it
July 22, 2020
One of my favorite authors writing about one of my favorite places on earth.. the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont!
March 21, 2021
The final novella made up for the first few short stories that weren’t really my thing.
May 3, 2022
An easy, if somewhat boring read, the short stories didn't engage me. The title novella had it's momemts but could have been shorter.
October 27, 2023
Amazing book.
December 28, 2023
I took absolutely nothing from this book. Skip it.
April 1, 2024
This the 3rd of Mosher's books that I've read. The other two were magical with a tremendous sense of place and people. This is simply average.
The search continues.
The search continues.
May 3, 2024
This is a collection of short stories set in Vermont. Nothing romantic about the area, just hard stories about hard people. Didn’t care for it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews