annewhitneypierce.com
Advance Praise for "Down to the River"
"'Down to the River' is a deeply absorbing family saga that unfolds in the vicinity of Harvard Square during the turbulence of the late Sixties and early Seventies. Anne Whitney Pierce captures those vanished days—the collapse of the old order, the sexual experimentation, the hovering threat of the war in Vietnam, the uneasy sense that anything might be possible—with uncanny precision and an empathy that does justice to both sides of the generation gap.”
"Some books you read, others you inhabit. 'Down to the River' is in the latter category. Anne Whitney Pierce writes about Cambridge, Mass. in the late 1960’s with the kind of rich, textured detail that’s missing from a lot of contemporary fiction. Without sentimentality or nostalgia, she brings the period alive with all of its political unrest, social anxiety, and sexual experimentation. More importantly, the Potts family becomes real and familiar, especially Chickie and Hen, the teenage cousins at the center of the novel. Their complicated relationship is a moving portrait of a particular stage of life in a specific time and place."
Stephen McCauley, author of
My Ex-Life and The Object of
My Affection
"Fans of Ann Patchett's 'The Dutch House' (2019) will savor this worthy entry to the genre."
Tom Perrotta, author of Election and Little Children
Karen Clements, Booklist
"Anne Whitney Pierce has written a novel so richly imagined and finely observed that it casts a sort of spell. The extended Potts family—flawed and loveable, dissolute and striving, solitary and connected, real—will live long in the mind and heart."