10/16/2023

With this exciting and intelligent family drama, Graff returns to the Wisconsin Northwoods terrain of Raft of Stars. In 1993, Chicago transplants Sam and Swami Brecht arrive in the tiny town of Thunderwater to take over a white water rafting company from Sam’s uncle. The couple met when they were both in college, working as rafting guides in West Virginia over summer break. After getting married, they’ve drifted far from their old lives (“They’d just changed, subtly as weathering rock”). Sam became an art teacher while Swami, who studied geology, has been consumed with motherhood. Now, in Thunderwater with their three young children, Sam hopes running the rafting company and living in a camper van will more closely resemble the setting where they met and fell in love. Their hopes for a pristine life are compromised, though, by a rival company aptly named X-treme Outdoor Adventures for its brazen marketing to the Mountain Dew crowd. Dangerous flooding and a mining company’s ominous plans for the region add to the plot, which takes a tragic turn near the end. Graff expertly balances his character-driven domestic fiction with an exciting adventure story. Readers will enjoy the ride. Agent: Maggie Cooper; Aevitas Creative Management. (Jan.)

True North is an engaging, character-driven portrait of a marriage under pressure from financial deception and conflicting desires. Graff writes about the outdoors, particularly rivers and river rafting, with an immersive blend of knowledge and passion.” — Charles Frazier, author of The Trackers and Cold Mountain

“If you’ve ever loved a special place in the woods, True North will flood you with all the feels. Andrew Graff’s clear-eyed, sensitive examination of marriage, family, and community weaves through a delightful story of whitewater adventure and small-town tension that’s impossible to put down. I loved it!" — Shelby Van Pelt, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures

“I adored Andrew J. Graff’s Raft of Stars, and his second novel does not disappoint. I couldn’t help but root for Sam and Swami and their family, as well as everyone else in their ragtag crew of river rafters. True North rolls seamlessly from humor to despair, from beauty to destruction—but in the end is a gorgeous story of family, community, and grace. I absolutely loved it.” — Kimi Cunningham Grant, USA Today bestselling author of These Silent Woods

“With this exciting and intelligent family drama, Graff returns to the Wisconsin Northwoods terrain of Raft of Stars. . . .Graff expertly balances his character-driven domestic fiction with an exciting adventure story. Readers will enjoy the ride.” — Publishers Weekly

“Graff charts the path of a marriage in crisis, with small slights and missteps threatening to send either party overboard. Sam and Swami echo the stubborn, resilient couples found in works by Matthew Norman, Sarah Dunn, and Meg Wolitzer, and True North will appeal to anyone who can relate to giving everything you've got to one last plan.” — Booklist (starred)

“Need to lift your spirits? True North does the trick . . . . Warmhearted . . . If you’re looking for a story that lets grace finally wash over its characters, come on down. The water’s great. Which is where True North really sparkles . . . . The most terrific passages of True North send us shooting through rapids in prose that feels both precise and chaotic. Don’t be surprised if waves crash over the margins of these pages.” — Ron Charles, Washington Post

Graff’s clear-eyed, sensitive examination of marriage, family, and community weaves through a delightful story of whitewater adventure and small-town tension that’s impossible to put down.”

An engaging, character-driven portrait of a marriage under pressure from financial deception and conflicting desires. Graff writes about the outdoors, particularly rivers and river rafting, with an immersive blend of knowledge and passion.”

Lincoln Hoppe demonstrates his skills with a stellar narration of this audiobook. His ability to subtly shift his tone and tempo from character to character, giving each a specific voice, makes this immersive novel stand out. Chip, an elderly river guide, has a gruffer, deeper voice than those of the other main characters, Sam and Swami Brecht. In a work with some high-adrenaline white water scenes, Hoppe controls the most intense action. Set in northern Wisconsin in the fictional town of Thunderwater, the story follows the Brecht couple's travails after they leave Chicago to run a rafting company. This stylishly written novel is enhanced by Hoppe's fine performance. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

2023-11-04
Trouble doesn’t stay behind when this family moves up north.

With his wife, Swami, and their three kids in tow, Sam Brecht drives a shiny new camper van from Chicago to the river-and-lake country of northern Wisconsin, where they’ve just bought a recreational rafting company from Chip, Sam’s uncle. They’ve agreed to go just for the summer, but Swami doesn’t know that Sam’s teaching job has been cut, he’s booked the campground beyond summer, and he’s not planning to go back. Cowardly as it is, we can see why Sam keeps secrets from his wife, who refers to the children as hers and the business as Sam’s—neither as shared. Feeling “relief layered on top of the guilt” of their estrangement, Sam is relying on “a miracle” to solve the problems of his career and his marriage. When they arrive at Woodchuck Rafting, however, what they find is a disorganized (but charming) band of misfits. It’s unclear why they’d expect anything else: Sam and Swami met and fell in love as rafting guides. In flashbacks and chapters told from her perspective, we see that Swami is more than the ball-and-chain wife Sam fails to placate. While Sam falls back into old vices such as smoking pot at work, Swami takes charge of shoring up the business against three existential threats: a new VC-funded competitor, a land-grabbing mining conglomerate, and unceasing rain. The novel picks up steam as it reveals which is the greatest menace. At a town meeting with the mining company, Sam makes a pitch for saving the local environment and economy: “I don’t know how, exactly…But it’s up to us. If we both try.” The crowd is confused, but it’s clear Sam is speaking to Swami. As chaos mounts, can they save both their family and Sam’s vision of life up north?

A conventional story of marriage on the rocks with a background of local environmental drama.