A review by kategci
Riverman: An American Odyssey by Ben McGrath

4.0

I am glad I picked up a copy of this book almost a year ago while I was in Vermont after Rachel Person, the events coordinator for the Northshire Saratoga store recommended it. In turn, I chose it for my personal book group as we are affiliated with a yacht club and we are always looking for books with a nautical theme. Ben McGrath, a staff writer for The New Yorker meets Dick Conant on Labor Day morning, 2014 on the banks of the Hudson in his hometown of Piermont. Conant is passing through, ostensibly on the way to Florida for the winter. They speak and McGrath writes a couple of articles for the magazine. When the canoe is found in a remote part of North Carolina, the Sheriff of the county contacts McGrath as Conant had kept his contact information. McGrath then searches and finds so many of the people that Conant had crossed paths with who almost always remembered him with fondness. Well-written, McGrath tries his best to show us Conant, but I somehow always felt he was at arm's length, trying to figure out why he was drawn to canoeing the rivers of the USA.