cover image Downstream

Downstream

John Rowe Townsend. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, $12.95 (182pp) ISBN 978-0-397-32188-9

Alan Dollis, 16, spends most of his time rowing on the river, away from his self-absorbed father and menopausal mother in an English country village. Lonely and isolated, Alan will soon face a tutor for German lessons to prepare for the rigorous new school he will enter in the fall. Things start to look up when Alan and his father discover a broken down boathouse by the river. His father impulsively buys the property, and Alan fixes it up. German lessons begin and Alan falls in love with his beautiful tutor Vivien. She rejects his sexual advances; because he still loves her it is doubly devastating for Alan to discover that his father and Vivien are having an affair, and frequently meet to make love at the boathouse he so lovingly repaired. Alan's revenge is the book's fiery climax, after which his life is changed forever. Alan's emotions are skillfully depicted, and the intriguingly steamy plot elements might distract readers from the fact that the book's other characters are fairly shallow and stereotypical. Ages 12-up. (August)