{"id":3172,"date":"2026-06-03T22:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T22:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/?p=3172"},"modified":"2026-06-03T22:12:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T22:12:37","slug":"white-river-crossing-ian-mcguires-terrific-new-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/2026\/06\/03\/white-river-crossing-ian-mcguires-terrific-new-novel\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWhite River Crossing\u201d: Ian McGuire\u2019s Terrific New Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So I\u2019ve been a fan of Ian McGuire’s fiction ever since the publication of his novel The North Water<\/em> (2016). I haven\u2019t followed his career closely or anything (I see there\u2019s a novel published in 2020 titled The Abstainer<\/em>, about which I know nothing), but just recently I discovered he has a new novel that debuted in February\u2014White River Crossing<\/em>. It\u2019s a terrific read and a great follow-up to The North Water<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Set in the late 18th<\/sup> century (begins in 1766), White River Crossing<\/em> is ostensibly a historical novel, but I find that genre category rather dismissive. Some of the world\u2019s greatest novels, including Tolstoy\u2019s monumental War and Peace<\/em> (1869), would fit under that label, or Cormac McCarthy\u2019s epic Blood Meridian<\/em> (1985). No label does a work of artistic genius justice. In his preface McGuire mentions how he did considerable research for the novel, mainly concerning the Hudson\u2019s Bay Company\u2014which had a monopoly on the Canadian fur industry for a good two hundred years\u2014and its interactions with the Native Americans who supplied them furs. Without giving much away (this is mentioned in the novel\u2019s jacket description) I can report the impetus for the novel\u2019s \u201cquest\u201d is the discovery of gold in a remote area northwest of Hudson\u2019s Bay, in a bleak landscape known as the Barren Grounds. Three men working for the Hudson\u2019s Bay Co set out to find the gold and . . . trouble ensues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What impresses me most about McGuire\u2019s fiction is not so much his subject matter (although I do love a good adventure story) but his style and diction. He has a knack for the odd, specific word, framed in lyrical, complex sentences. When I was teaching a graduate-level creative writing course at Penn State I had the class read The North Water<\/em>, mainly for the stylistic pyrotechnics, and the class . . . hated it! I\u2019m not kidding. I have to say they disappointed me greatly, and seemed to fall into the trap of gender-sensitivity and the cliches of \u201cwokeness.\u201d I tried to argue the novel\u2019s strengths, to no avail. They weren\u2019t having it. How could he write a novel with no exemplary female characters in it?<\/em> That was their main beef. How could he write such despicable \u201ctoxic maleness\u201d? Groan. Yes, there are despicable male characters in The North Water<\/em>. We\u2019re not supposed to \u201clike\u201d them. My easy summation of the novel? It\u2019s a revisionist Moby Dick<\/em>. The men are not noble and level-headed, such as Ishmael in Moby<\/em>, and not austere and sexually disinterested, such as Ahab. It’s a 21st century vision of the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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They\u2019re men, some of them violent and dangerous, and sailors on ships in the Atlantic and \u201cNorth Waters\u201d with sexual urges and crimes. Some of the language echoes Cormac McCarthy\u2019s\u00a0Blood Meridian<\/em>. At times it\u2019s a mixture of obscure technical lingo (sailing terms, for instance) and archaic usage (historically accurate, we assume), with a zing of Anglo-Saxon spice. I\u2019m digging the book: Best novel I\u2019ve read since Richard Yates\u2019s\u00a0The Easter Parade<\/em> (1976), which is a classic that I finally got around to reading a couple years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a diehard McCarthy fan (my Houston Chronicle<\/em> review of No Country for Old Men<\/em>, for instance, is quoted as a blurb on the paperback edition) know that my comparison of McGuire\u2019s fiction to McCarthy\u2019s is not taken lightly. I usually wince when a book comes out that is compared to any of McCarthy\u2019s novels: It\u2019s a literary Kiss of Death. He\u2019s just too hard of an act to follow. But with The North Water,<\/em> and now White River Crossing<\/em>, he pulls it off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I usually wince when a book comes out that is compared to any of Cormac McCarthy\u2019s novels: It\u2019s a literary Kiss of Death. He\u2019s just too hard of an act to follow. But with\u00a0The North Water,\u00a0and now\u00a0White River Crossing, Ian McGuire pulls it off. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[431,484,485,405,30],"tags":[55,66,105,486],"class_list":["post-3172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cormac-mccarthy-novels","category-historical-fiction","category-ian-mcguire-novels","category-old-west-history","category-tolstoys-war-and-peace","tag-book-reviewing","tag-cormac-mccarthy","tag-ian-mcguires-the-north-water","tag-ian-mcguires-white-river-crossing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t