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Where the River Ends | 
 enlarge | Author: Charles Martin
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $11.73
You Save: $8.22 (41%)
New (37) Collectible (2) from $11.73
Avg. Customer Rating:  48 reviews
Sales Rank: 5768
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.4
ISBN: 0767926986
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780767926980
ASIN: 0767926986
Publication Date: July 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A powerfully emotional and beautifully written story of heartbreaking loss and undying love
He was a fishing guide and struggling artist from a south George trailer park. She was the beautiful only child of South Carolina’s most powerful senator. Yet once Doss Michaels and Abigail Grace Coleman met by accident, they each felt they’d found their true soul mate.
Ten years into their marriage, when Abbie faces a life-threatening illness, Doss battles it with her every step of the way. And when she makes a list of ten things she hopes to accomplish before she loses the fight for good, Doss is there, too, supporting her and making everything possible. Together they steal away in the middle of the night to embark upon a 130-mile trip down the St. Mary’s River—a voyage Doss promised Abbie in the early days of their courtship.
Where the River Ends chronicles their love-filled, tragedy-tinged journey and a bond that transcends all.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 43 more reviews...
 Where The River Ends August 30, 2008
I have read all 6 of Charles Martin's books and although I enjoyed this latest one it was not my favorite. The others I have read over several times laughing and crying each time, but this is the only one I was able to put down and may not read again. He has a masterful way of writing descriptions of people and places that make you feel you are right there and know each person intimately. In this book I felt the descriptions were a little too much. They took over the entire book and seemed to mask parts on the story. I anxiously waited for this book to be released and was a little disappointed. I hope Charles Martin's next book is more like the first five that I loved.
 A Portrait of Love August 29, 2008
Early in their romance, Charleston debutante and world-famous fashion model Abbie Coleman asks Doss Michaels to paint a semi-nude portrait of her household servant and friend Rosalia, surviver of a mastectomy. At first sight of the scarred torso, Doss is repelled, but Abbie tells him to look until he sees something that makes him want to look again, a way of saying, "Look until you see you see something of beauty in the unbeautiful." He does, and paints his first truly successful portrait, capturing the pain, endurance, and stirring dignity of the woman before him. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote of this unexpected truth in his magnificent "Pied Beauty," and throughout Where the River Ends, Charles Martin explores the irony that we, as human beings, grow stronger, better, closer to the Eternal as we invest all we are in the weak, the diseased, the unlovely--even when all others are fleeing.
When Abbie herself has undergone various surgeries, chemotherapies, and radiation treatments after fourteen years of marriage to Doss, she asks him to take her once again on a canoe trip down the St. Marys River, recreating their honeymoon trip. Her treatment has lasted for four years, has been harrowing in the extreme, and has left her in excruciating pain, emaciated, scarred beyond recognition, and utterly spent. She is completely reliant upon Doss, and he never deserts her. He steals the drugs necessary to keep her going during the trip (or makes it appear so), and they set off, with the help of an outfitter he had worked for in the days when he grew up near the river.
During those early days on the river, Doss's mother had told him that he would one day find God in the waters of the St. Marys. He never has. Indeed, he has thought that if he ever could, given the way life has turned out, he'd throttle him. Now, during this canoe trip, he and Abbie meet a defrocked priest, Bob, with whom Doss considers the meaning of Abbie's pain. How could a loving God allow such horror?
It's the question of Rosalia's portrait. If Abbie had not explained God's purpose for pain, she had at least taught Doss to embrace it on that earlier occasion. Later in their trip, she continues the lesson when she offers herself as the subject of a portrait. Doss has served his wife unfailingly. Now, he uses his art in meticulous detail to set her free, absolutely, unconditionally, by accepting her in all her frailty and ugliness. In so doing, he sets himself free as well. He has become the artist he was meant to be and she has always wanted him to be. For all his gifts to her, this is her great gift to him.
Martin spares the reader no detail of Abbie's illness, or at least the description is so scrupulous that it seems so. The effects on her body of the chemo, her need for the pain-killing meds, and all the rest are so carefully limned that one sometimes wonders during the reading why we are subjected to such horrors. And there is a reason, indeed. Without the description, we couldn't be prepared for the catharsis of that final portrait.
Here is but one limited reading of this remarkable novel. I'm well aware that given another another day or two--I finished the book last night--I'd probably construct this review quite differently. Like all dense fiction, Where the River Ends will reward the perceptive reader with multiple paths of discovery. What one derives from a work of art depends largely upon what one brings to it. I choose to believe that Doss Michaels finds God in the St. Marys. He finds God in much the same way that the characters of Walker Percy and Graham Greene find him: through others, through sacrificial love.
oops August 29, 2008
Great,moving, thought-provoking story. However, as a teacher, there were several grammatical errors/typos that bothered me-a better job of proofreading would make the whole book even more enjoyable.
Another Masterpiece by Charles Martin August 27, 2008
Charles Martin has done it again! Once again he has crafted a book with a rich story line, memorable characters, and beautiful imagery. This isn't my favorite Charles Martin book, but it is still excellent and hooked me almost immediately. This is a love story about a man and a woman sharing their last moments together while on a fantastic journey. The story is told through the eyes of Doss Michaels and focuses on his amazing love for his wife even while her body was being ravished by cancer. The main characters are easy to relate to and even easier to fall in love with.
Waiting for the new Nicholas Sparks Novel? Give this a Try! August 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I found this book by accident, browsing Amazon for something new to read. This came up as a recommendation for fans of Nicholas Sparks (who happens to be my favorite author). I found this book to be similar to a Sparks novel -- right down to the jacket design and title artwork!
A story about the love between a man and woman and the lengths each are willing to go for each other. While I found some parts a little over the top and melodramatic and others just plain unbelievable, I found the story of Doss & Abby very similar to the types of characters that Sparks writes about. I came to care about these characters and rooted for them. You wanted to see these two have their happily ever after despite the all the sadness that these two have had to face. I did find the sections of the book that described the river and the land to be a little long-winded and unecessary. I wanted more story and interaction between the characters and less descriptions of the land, the water and the direction that it flows! But what was written was done so beautifully and moving. It was easy to fall in love with Doss and hope that Abby got well.
I believe I might give this author another shot -- try one of his other novels to see if they are my type of reading. For a short while, anyhow, it was a nice substitution while I play the waiting game for Sparks' new novel - THE LUCKY ONE (due 9/30/08). If you're a fan of Nicholas Sparks and find yourself looking for something to fill in the time while we wait, give this one a try -- I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
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