Once Upon a River
In the dead of winter in 1887, the regulars at the Swan, a pub on the Thames, sit around telling their stories, when the latest and most exciting story bursts into the room – a severely injured man holding a dead child collapses on the threshold, victims of the icy river. The child, a girl, is put in a storage shed while the unconscious man’s wounds are tended. When the nurse finally has time to examine the body, it shocks her by proving to come, incredibly, to life. Were they all simply mistaken in thinking her dead? The girl is strange – melancholy and mute – and has an odd effect on all who meet her. Is she the child of an abandoned wife, who recently committed suicide? The kidnapped daughter of a wealthy local couple? The sister of a much-abused, solitary housekeeper? It turns out more than one nearby family is missing a four-year-old girl. All attempt to claim her as the mystery of her identity and provenance deepens.
Setterfield, like her regulars at the Swan, is quite a storyteller. This particular one is reminiscent of campfire ghost stories – convenient coincidences and pat endings suffused throughout with eeriness. Yet this story has an incredible depth provided by Setterfield’s wonderful characterization, which extends to every single player in this novel’s substantial cast. From the nurse to a kindly farmer and his wife to even the animals, all are crafted with a skill that allows them to step off the page, weaving the myriad strands of this tale into something both immersive and fascinating. Setterfield’s storytelling voice is lyrical and mysterious, the plotline is tinged with the supernatural, and the evocation of atmosphere is perfect in this slowly unspooling tale of love, loss, and reunion.
