Prolific Southern novelist Mary Alice Monroe turns to historical fiction in her immersive dual-timeline novel, Where the Rivers Merge. As 88-year-old Eliza Pinckney Rivers faces her own mortality, she confronts tough moments from the past and considers how best to preserve her family's land for the future.
Monroe's narrative shifts between Eliza's early 20th-century childhood at Mayfield, her family's sprawling estate outside Charleston, S.C., and 1988, when the elderly Eliza shares her complicated history with her granddaughter and other relatives. With lush descriptions of the Carolina Lowcountry and Eliza's adventures with her brothers and friends, Monroe paints an idyllic picture of a privileged childhood. But World War I, the realities of Jim Crow laws, and other challenges soon enter the picture, and Eliza makes difficult choices--plus a few mistakes--as she navigates young womanhood and her parents' conflicting expectations.
In 1988, Eliza is nearing retirement, determined to save Mayfield from the ambitions of her greedy son and safeguard her family's legacy. As she recounts her early experiences, she owns up to her past failings and discovers surprising new sides to her family's story. Monroe weaves Eliza's fictional history into the larger narrative of the Deep South, and explores the effects of familial expectations, the weight of racism and sexism, and the enduring power of friendship and love.
Sweeping and sensuous, Where the Rivers Merge is a layered family saga and an insightful exploration of one woman's efforts to honor the past while remaining open to change. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams