The River

Tricia Wastvedt

From Shelf: The 2005 Women's Prize for Fiction Longlist

In 1958, in a small Devon village, two children, playing in a boat on the river, are drowned. Their parents are distraught but remain in the village, living together yet estranged, for the next thirty years. Over time their tragedy becomes part of the invisible fabric of village life until, one summer's day, Anna arrives.

In 1958, in a small Devon village, two children, playing in a boat on the river, are drowned. Their parents are distraught but remain in the village, living together yet estranged, for the next thirty years. Over time their tragedy becomes part of the invisible fabric of village life until, one summer's day, Anna arrives. She comes to the village to escape her own disappointments. She does not tell anyone that she is pregnant. Anna goes to live with Isabel, and for a time the women find solace in each other's company. But the baby's arrival opens old wounds leading, inexorably, to tragedy...

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