Lee Sandlin is the author ofWicked River,Storm Kings, and TheDistancers. He was also an award-winning journalist, essayist, and book reviewer forThe Wall Street Journal. Born in Wildwood, Illinois, he grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. He died in 2014.
"In this lush, exuberant, action-packed and history-drenched book,
Sandlin has brought the river back home again. . . . A vivid
torrent of facts and passions, in an inspired agitation of water
and words. . . . Wicked River is the best kind of history book. It
is organized around people and their fates, not wars and dates and
treaty signings. It artfully separates reality from fables, but it
recognizes that fables have a story to tell, too, that our tall
tales and our songs and our exaggerations and our mythologies can
be as revelatory as topographical maps and temperature charts."
—Chicago Tribune
"Gripping stuff. . . . Appreciators of what Greil Marcus calls the
Old, Weird America will savor Wicked River. Its many ghastly
scenes, vividly rendered by Mr. Sandlin, started showing up in my
dreams. . . . I was surprised, upon finishing Wicked River, to read
that this confident and swift-moving book is the author's first. It
makes one eager for the next."-—John Jeremiah Sullivan, The Wall
Street Journal
"A biography of the river in its pre-Twain period."
—The Washington Post
"Entertaining. . . . Chicago essayist and journalist Lee Sandlin
tells tales about the Mississippi in the days when the river and
the people who floated on it or lived along it were wild and
untamed in the extreme. . . . Sandlin has done an impressive amount
of research. For all that, his prose manages to avoid the snags and
shoals of academic English. . . . A lot of fun to read."
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Remarkable. . . . Told with the same verve and affinity for a good
yarn that encomia to the river tend to inspire, Wicked River looks
at life along the Mississippi in the 19th century, before Twain had
us thinking it was all Americana adventures. . . . Sandlin may
singlehandedly destroy the view that the Midwest is a mellow
place."
—Time Out Chicago
"Marvelously captured. . . . A superb book debut. . . . Sandlin
writes of a recurring sense of looming catastrophe that gripped
many residents. . . . Fascinating."
—Chicago Sun-Times
"Sumptuous writing and fascinating tales of the days when life on
the Mississippi was rough and wild. . . . Sandlin transports
readers back to a renegade time on the Mississippi, a rollicking
ride full of marauders, floating brothels and rough characters spit
straight from the pen of Twain himself. Sandlin's own prose style
is a fluvial joy."
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
"A gripping look back at the forgotten history of the river that
made America."
—The Daily Beast
"Splendid. . . . Intriguing. . . . Full of great stories. . . .
makes for amusing and stimulating reading."
—Columbus Commercial Dispatch (MS)
"[A] superb book debut. . . . Thoroughly engaging, entertaining and
seductively educational history. . . . a grand, clear-eyed look at
river towns' 'semi-barbarism.'"
—The Denver Post
"Sandlin pulls no punches . . . it's almost as if he decided Twain
was wrong and we need to find out the truth. He tells of pirates,
drownings and slavery even uglier than most history books will tell
us, of people who fell off boats and had no way of being rescued in
a wilderness. . . . if you love the river and its history, read it.
It's fun."
—Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin
"A gripping book that plunges you into a rich dark stretch of
visceral history. I read it in two sittings and got up shaken."
—Garrison Keillor
"Raucous, fascinating and fun. . . . [Lee] Sandlin debuts with a
rollicking history of the Mississippi Valley before commerce and
technology tamed it. . . . [He] seems to have adopted some of
Twain’s technique in Life On the Mississippi—i.e., disappearing for
pages into long narratives/legends/rumors associated with the
valley and its denizens. . . . [He] provides some John McPhee–like
detail about geology and riverine history, and also examines the
human history of the region. . . . Apart from his generous offering
of surprising facts, it’s obvious that Sandlin loves the lore of
the river, its narratives, legends and lies. . . . Readers will
delight in stories about Annie Christmas (who wrote tales about
prostitutes), Marie Laveau (the Voodoo Queen), the Crow’s Nest
pirates and John Murrell and his so-called “Mystic Clan. . .
.Gorgeous. ”
—Kirkus
"Wicked River almost makes you feel guilty for enjoying an
education so much. I learned things at every S-curve, neck deep in
a fine, fine story. I lived a stone's throw from that river, and
though I knew it flowed through eons of meanness and sadness and
ribaldry, I didn't know it was this twisted. "
—Rick Bragg, author of The Prince of Frogtown
“Great stuff, essential stuff, and yeah, wicked.”
—Roy Blount Jr, author of Alphabet Juice and Long Time Leaving
Dispatches From Up South
"Geographically, culturally, and metaphorically, the Mississippi
River has been at the center of American reality and imagination
for 400 years. In Wicked River, Lee Sandlin has lived up to his
epic subject, taking us into overlooked, if not forgotten, epochs
of history and folklore. Through labor and erudition he weaves the
incredibly complicated strands of a story that seems too big to
contemplate into a coherent tale that is surprising and
entertaining on every page. He's made the river his own, and
extends it as a welcome gift to the reader."
—Anthony Walton, author of Mississippi: An American Journey
"What a wickedly wild ride of a read! I loved this book! It may be
nonfiction, but Sandlin tells his stories with a narrative drive
that any novelist would envy. The events and characters from the
early days along the Mississippi, which he so evocatively
recreates, are among the most fascinating you’ll ever encounter
anywhere. Honest to god, reading history has never been more
fun!".
—William Kent Krueger, author of Heaven's Keep
“One of the best book’s ever written about the Mississippi River.
Each page rounds a new bend full of delirious missionaries,
hell-bent-for-speed steamboat captains, and gaudy traders in ‘fancy
girl’ slave prostitutes. You won’t put it down till you’ve read
every steamy, malarial, fascinating page.”
—Mike Tidwell, author of Bayou Farewell
“Today we think of the Mississippi River as an elder statesman of
the American landscape, but for most of the nineteenth century it
was pure frontier: unruly, unregulated, and dangerous. Wicked River
perfectly captures the great river's secret history, overflowing
with wonderfully chosen and impeccably delivered character
sketches, set pieces, and side trips.”
—Scott W. Berg, author of Grand Avenues
“In a narrative worthy of Mark Twain, Lee Sandlin tells of the
Mississippi River when it was not only wild but wicked, home to
sharpers and humbuggers, jackanapes, tub thumpers, and naked
revelers. This is a grand tale of America’s mightiest river
and the larger-than-life men and women who rode its waves into
history.”
—Sandra Dallas, author of Whiter Than Snow and Prayers for Sale
“A fascinating book, rich in detail and lore, the kind of strange
object one wants to curl up with for long periods of time and gaze
into the past we know much less well than we imagine. Wicked
River is bound to cause a stir among readers who always want to
know a little more about some place or some thing than the usual
sources allow. Reading it is going to school again, in the best
possible way. An entrance into a world so magical and unlikely
that every page is a new episode full of real
swashbuckling, nasty critters (human), and the roiling history of
the big bad river.”
—Frederick Barthelme, author of Waveland
"[A] superb book debut. . . . Thoroughly engaging, entertaining and
seductively educational history. . . . a grand, clear-eyed look at
river towns' 'semi-barbarism.'"
—The Denver Post
"Sandlin pulls no punches . . . it's almost as if he decided Twain
was wrong and we need to find out the truth. He tells of pirates,
drownings and slavery even uglier than most history books will tell
us, of people who fell off boats and had no way of being rescued in
a wilderness. . . . if you love the river and its history, read it.
It's fun."
—Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin
Ask a Question About this Product More... |