Their flaws become more apparent through every hardship - hardships that at times feel unrealistic. The boy’s wilderness capabilities are put to the test in a series of conflicts that build upon one another. Jack and Wynn struggle against human forces as well: a pair of drunks and a couple heard through a bought of thick fog having a volatile argument. Safety and risk are always being balanced, as is true in any real-life survival situation. The boys struggle against nature, quite realistically, as they coexist with a raging wildfire of seemingly unrealistic proportions. The skillful dark horse Jack, couples with Wynn who acts as a strong moral compass.

Heller writes these two characters much like the archetypes seen in old Westerns, which are often mentioned throughout the story. Bonded over their mutual love of literature, the two boys decide to halt their studies at Dartmouth and take their dream trip 160 miles down the river to the Hudson Bay. Wynn hailed from Vermont, also tough but whose softness shone through his tendency to see the best in everyone and everything. Jack is tough and gritty, raised on a ranch in Colorado, still struggling with his mother’s accidental death. Heller, the best selling author of “The Dog Stars,” weaves the story of Jack and Wynn, two young men on their canoe trip down the Maskwa River, a remote stretch of water that slithers across rough Canadian landscape. In his new book “The River,” Peter Heller shows off his personal expertise and meticulous research cogently.

Pinning down very specific and intricate details of the outdoors is often what makes or breaks a wilderness novel.

Heller the river