Calumet Editions

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Panic River

Struggling artist Corey Fischer has spent a lifetime masking his feelings—until his estranged father’s sudden death pulls him back to Pepin, Wisconsin. An inheritance of two hunting rifles and a strained reunion with his mother begin to unravel his life. Corey and his husband, Nick, retreat to the family cabin during hunting season, entering the woods with loaded guns and years of resentment. When betrayals surface while tracking a wounded buck at dusk, Corey makes panicked, life-defining choices and flees the wreckage he’s created.

Wickedly intense and psychologically riveting

—Peter Geye, author of A Lesser Light

Description

Corey Fischer, a struggling artist, is in big trouble. A lifetime of deference and masking inner-feelings has blinded him to the truth in others, even as those truths emerge onto the canvas of his paintings. The sudden death of his estranged father brings Corey down river, to his hometown of Pepin, Wisconsin, where he confronts past and present torments. The taunting inheritance of a pair of hunting rifles from his dead father, together with a lukewarm reunion with his mother, launches an unraveling of the tenuous ties binding Corey’s life together. The inheritance delivers Corey and his husband, Nick, to the Fischer family cabin in northern Wisconsin during hunting season where they head into the woods with loaded guns, and years of simmering resentment. Emotions explode as the couple track a wounded eight-point buck at dusk, and as Nick’s betrayals are accidentally revealed. Corey makes a series of panicked, life-defining choices which propel him to flee the trail of destruction his life has wrought, and to seek comfort from those who loved him all along.

Product Details

PublishedJanuary 12, 2023
ImprintCalumet Editions
LanguageEnglish
Print length306
ISBN-13978-1959770190
Dimensions6 x 0.77 x 9 inches

Novel readers who choose Panic River for its theme of a middle-aged gay man facing his demons and much-changed circumstances will uncover the roots of these connections and will learn how they evolve. They will find Panic River a powerfully evocative, thought-provoking consideration of how life moves on, how freedoms evaporate and re-form, and how one man makes difficult choices that bring him full circle in an unexpected way.

–Midwest Book Review:

Overall, this book was a fascinating read about love, tough love, and all the complicated relationships that happen when a person decides to be him or herself. Well-written with all types of little life lessons thrown in, this book was engaging and entertaining. A book well worth reading, geared toward young adults to adults.

—Kristi Elizabeth, San Francisco Book Review

I appreciate an engaging story that keeps you page turning, but even more than that, I appreciate great writing. This is hands down, both! I want to have ALL of the characters over for dinner and learn more about every single one of them—that’s how real they all felt while reading the story. J–M, verified review on Amazon Panic River by Elliott Foster is a tour de force! Foster has an impressive ability to keep you turning the page, not with run-of-the-mill cliffhangers or phony melodrama, but by making the reader genuinely care about the characters in this book. Already an accomplished author, with Panic River Foster has established himself as a bona fide master novelist.

—Mcgu0138 on Amazon