Description
The Remains of River Names by Matt Briggs
ISBN 978-0930773564
The novel is told in twelve linked stories, each of which is a chapter told in turn by the members of a counter-culture family in the process of destroying itself. The novel takes place over twenty years, from the ’70’s to the 90’s, from the beginnings of familial disintegration to its individual members coming to terms. This novel won the 1998 King County (Washington) Arts Commission Publication Award for Fiction.
Reviews
“The Remains of River Names” is an emotionally accurate and vividly compelling journey into actuality.
—William Kittredge
Briggs has captured the America that neither progressives nor family-values advocates want to think about, where bohemianism has degenerated into dangerous dropping out.
—The New York Times Book Review, Ann Powers
Such art registers the hard realities and tenacious romaniticism of a country wet with fog and light.
—New York Times Book Review
With this first collection that functions as a novel, Matt Briggs adds to the gravelly layers of “Northwest writing,” while the controversy over what the moniker means must continue. The Remains of River Names is a beautiful, blunt, and haunting book, one that takes regionalism and splinters it; Briggs is a voice that will take our area into the future, and I for one look forward to it.
—The Stranger, August 26, 1999
Awards
Winner of the 1998 King County Arts Commission Publication Award.
About the Author
Matt Briggs was born in Seattle in 1970. He was raised thirty-miles east of the Snoqualmie Valley by working-class, hippie parents. During the Gulf War, he served in Riyadh, Saudia Arabia as an army laboratory technician running urine analysis on canine units and prisoners of war. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1995 with a BA in English. He lives in Seattle with his wife, Lisa Purdy. His stories have appeared in The North Atlantic Review, The Raven Chronicles, Northwest Review, and ZYZZYVA.
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