Swift River

In Binstock’s novel, Polly McPhee is a girl approaching adolescence in the Swift River Valley in 1927. In this quiet valley, decades pass with little change to the rural way of life, until now. Nearby Boston is pushing for a municipal water project that would dam Swift River and turn the valley into a reservoir to quench the thirsty city. Polly’s tale is mostly told in the form of diary entries, skipping forward through time as we alight briefly on events of importance, both to the region, and to Polly’s personal life. The historical detail proves illuminating and Binstock’s cast of characters feel developed and real, but Polly herself is a poor narrator, her tone inconsistent and sometimes strangely dispassionate. Her diary entries are also sprinkled with sections of brief, untagged dialogue, streams of consciousness, and small sections from other people’s points of view, changing the tone without warning and disrupting the illusion of reading a historic diary. [em](BookLife) [/em]