The River Beyond the World: A Novel

This first novel, a nominee for the 1996 National Book Award, is a different kind of family saga: two families come together in the agricultural outback around Rio Paradiso, that of the young Mexican girl Luisa and her children, and that of the affluent farmer's wife Eddie and her son Raleigh. Peery combines a straightforward narrative style with moments of lyrical, almost mystical grace and beauty. The intertwined stories of Eddie and Louisa and their children, Raleigh and Antonia, reveal the hidden currents within the most loveless and downward spiraling lives. Peery is a writer of great promise.