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The River Lock: One Boy's Life Along the Mohawk (Memoir) | 
 enlarge | Author: Stephen Haven
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $12.19
You Save: $7.76 (39%)
New (26) Used (3) from $12.19
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 884463
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 175
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.7
ISBN: 0815609280
Dewey Decimal Number: 818.6
EAN: 9780815609285
ASIN: 0815609280
Publication Date: May 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Product Description
Pulled between the disparate spheres of home life with a minister father he loves and respects, and the world of sex, drugs, and violence of his closest boyhood friends, author Stephen Haven relates his journey of self-discovery in this poignant memoir. After a fourteen-year absence from his home in Amsterdam, New York, Haven returns in the week before Easter, 2003, to the town that molded his character. A true bildungsroman, The River Lock traces the forging of Haven's identity from the clash of his youthful home life and the streets of his native mill town. Through memories of adolescence, Haven reveals how a growing understanding of art, culture, friendship, spirituality, family, and class melded to create a man able to live fully in two distinct worlds.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Graceful Meditation on Christianity August 30, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The following review of Stephen Haven's The River Lock appeared in the August 15, 2008 issue of Image Update, a biweekly e-mail newsletter from Image, a quarterly print journal that explores the relationship between Judeo-Christian faith and art through contemporary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, film, music, and dance:
Stephen Haven grew up in Amsterdam, New York, a small, upstate town along the Mohawk River--or, as he puts it, Exit 27 on the New York State Thruway. In The River Lock he tells two stories: that of his youth in Amsterdam, the son of an Episcopal priest--and the parallel story of his return to his native town, years later, as a forty-six-year-old seeking to reconnect with his roots. Readers in search of a slick, racy memoir won't find it here. What they will find is a quiet voice, able to move from vernacular toughness to lyric poignance, recounting classic stories of adolescent angst while slowly, patiently, endowing them with the detail that makes such tales come to quirky, individual life. Haven is of course a poet and the director of the Ashland University MFA program, so it's no surprise that the book can take a lyric turn. But however poetic, this volume is still prose, with its own rhythms and arcs and twists. There are sentences worth pausing to re-read. "My dog Ishmael--yes, my father, a Melville man, named her Ishmael--used to swim in the Mohawk in the summer and would come back smelling like the dead...." A "PK" (preacher's kid), Haven never fully abandoned Christianity even during his youthful escapades. Some of the most beautiful moments in the book involve a changing portrait of his father, with whom he was, by and large, very close. Always the river remains with him, psychic anchor for his hopes and memories. Early in the book he writes of trying to hear what the river has to say to him: "If only I were listening, I thought I might shoo away the dull weight of any single hour, and whatever brought me there, whatever flash of violence once shook me, might breathe with grace and light against the moment's trespass." The River Lock does shoo away a couple hours, bringing to the wounds of one man's life--and to ours--grace and light.
Reminiscing on Haven's past filled with drugs, sex, and violence August 18, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
One's hometown, the city one grows up in, has much to do with the development of one's character. "The River Lock: One's Boy's Life Along the Mohawk" is author Stephen Haven's recounting of his childhood in Amsterdam, New York. Looking at the culture of the town and reminiscing on Haven's past filled with drugs, sex, and violence, "The River Lock" is intriguing and highly recommended for community library memoir collections.
I too once lived there. August 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
There are certain things that only other former Amsterdamians can understand. I truly enjoyed this book, and understood where he was going with it from the beginning.
In the beginning of the book, he talks about staying in the Best Western, that had formally been the Holiday Inn. This is the nicest hotel in town, though no longer a Best Western, it is where I stayed during a visit last year. As sad and sick as it may be, our hotel room bed still had a Holiday Inn tag on it(after a dozen or so years, and two changes of ownership). This was something I found to be "so Amsterdam". Things in that my look different on the surface, but under it all, it's still the same.
I found this book to be an easy read, and read it in it's entirety last evening. The book is well written, and Mr. Haven creates a clear picture to the life he lead while living in a town of limited possibilities.
 Disappointing July 11, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I couldn't wait to get a copy of this book and read it. I had read some of Haven's poetry, and it is great. I read River Lock in one sitting and plan to read it again, so that I can review it in more detail elsewhere.
I'm not sure Haven ever knew where he was heading with this book. The book seems purposeless and almost pointless. The endless telling of adolescent tomfoolery wore thin rather quickly. Frankly, I am tired of stories of people's first sexual experience, first period, first time drunk, etc. It's not that these experiences shouldn't be written about, but it takes an exceptional writer to write about them in a way that's interesting and meaningful. These stories are so common now, they have become cliches.
The book has better moments like the chapter titled PK. Occasionally, Haven's poetic skills break through and there are sentences and paragraphs that are like pearls in pig muck. At times, however, Haven's writing borders on cruelty. This is particularly true when writing about the little Tucci girl's sexual activity. It's not that writing about sex is bad, but disclosing such information about a girl, when everyone in Amsterdam, New York knows who she is, is not great writing. It's simply bad taste.
The River Lock June 1, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Stephen Haven's memoir, The River Lock, is an introspective telling of the trials, tribulations and warm hearted escapades of an adolescent coming of age in upstate New York. Stephen's father is a respected rector at a local parish; Stephen's youthful indiscretions often conflict with this pious background and a somewhat laissez faire upbringing. There are a number of amusing childish pranks. There is also an element of danger as Stephen tends to wander between two distinct circles of friends and comes in contact with elements of alcohol, drugs and violence. There are many forks in the road.
This is a story about childhood and about growing up. It is a story about the choices that we make and the forces that shape our lives and remain with us. It is a fond reminiscence to which most can relate. Stephen Haven writes with a sense of humor and a sense of place that make this a novel that will stay with you. Highly recommended!
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