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Title: River Under the Road

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: Scott Spencer

Narrator: David Bendena

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-27-17

Publisher: Dreamscape Media, LLC

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Thaddeus Kaufman, the son of booksellers, and Grace Cornell, raised in a basement apartment she longs to escape, meet at a neighborhood art fair in Chicago. Soon after, they head to New York, aloft on the wings of young love.

Jennings Stratton, the son of a caretaker, and Muriel Sanchez, the daughter of a cop, meet in a house he is refurbishing in New Mexico, and they, too, head for the big city. In a vast Hudson River estate, the lives of the two couples ultimately intertwine. Thaddeus has made it big, setting off a chain reaction of envy among his friends and forever changing the dynamic of his marriage. And Jennings, hoping to transcend his reputation as the local Casanova, has ventured into a cycle of theft and betrayal that threatens to destroy the fragile life of his family.

Funny and cutting, River Under the Road is Scott Spencer's masterpiece of all that lies beneath our everyday lives - a story about the pursuit of love, art, and money, and the inevitable reckoning that awaits us all.

Members Reviews:

Hits a brick wall (with a vodka bottle)

There is poetry on every page but pristine work in any art suggests no risks being taken. It's hip, it's cool, some interesting degeneracy among landed gentry. This highly polished novel gets its ticket punched in most traditional formal ways though too heavy on narrative-shy on dialogue that might add a third dimension to any character. It is careful. It is considered. It is masterfully crafted. It refers to a nifty range of precursors from Cheever (parties here as swimming pools), Lawrence ( the eroticized handyman) and all the wretched drunks of post WWII USA-lit. Got tired of the "usual suspect" cardboard alcoholic couple who are dismal to one another, unreachable to one another and these two wonder WTF? they DRINK all the time - that's WTF. Alcohol is a depressant. alcohol is an exhausted trope in USA literature. Alcohol is tired and wants to go home. Alcohol is dark and dull . I was so looking forward to liking all of this book and recommending to friends but it ran out of gas. Writing about troubled people who drink is shooting ducks in a barrel. So easy there is lots of time to dream up poetic metaphors and precise and unusual descriptions and keep dialogue and narrative reciprocating. No one in this book is interesting after the stereotype scoop of bored rich people and film biz insider lore wears off. Showing the world how unhappy people with money can be is a moldier trope than the alcoholic couple. Everyone I know who has lots of money is happy as can be. A positive thing about this book is that it was at least readable for many pages whereas Jonathan Frantzen is always impenetrably dull - like reading sawdust. Strange and sad when an artist works so hard on a set of ideas and a cluster of characters that have no verve. Alcohol is a third rail. Is it impossible to write a novel about humorous, happy, highly motivated humans? Tolstoy was SO wrong. Happy families are fascinating and they're all different. Unhappy families are run of the mill, dull, repetetive, anhedonic -unhappy characters in fiction are like hippie handmade houses - builders thing they are doing something intensely original and when all are compiled in a coffee table book, they all look like they were designed by the same uneducated but enthusiastic, passionate person. Depression and its dysfunctions are incredibly common.