Down The River By Yourself

About the Book

What isolates individuals in modern life and what does it feel like to be “down the river by yourself”? That’s the broad focus here. More specifically, the novel explores and exposes a common tradition of growing boys into men which often isolates them in this way. By pressuring them to appear tough and invulnerable on the outside, it may turn them into troubled loners on the inside. The summer camp in the novel models this: a one size fits all place where young boys learn that the governing rule is always to “sluff it off”, even heavy bullying and sexual humiliation.

We sense the connection here to the growing domestic violence instigated by angry young men, or their plunge into drug addiction and crime, or at the most extreme the increasing number of terrorists and mass shooters who take out their rage against the society they feel has cheated and humiliated them. Wendell, the hero of the novel, returns as a middle-aged man to try reforming the camp where he suffered this abuse as a twelve year old. There he finds a modern boy of that same age undergoing the same torment and attempts to rescue him—with a desperation born of his powerful identification with him. In the process he also tries to save the twenty-year-old who has joined down river with the boy, becoming a terrorist threatening the community where Wendell lives and woman whom he loves.