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"Bissell's story of life on a towboat is a perfect complement to Twain's Life on the Mississippi. I have spent almost thirty years working on the River and if I had to recommend only one book that explains what the people and towboat life is like, this would be the book. His depiction of river characters and their dialog is perfect."

Gregory J Genz

A Stretch on the River

Richard Bissell

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Author Richard Bissell worked on the Mississippi most of his life and from the very first page, A Stretch on the River sweeps the reader along much like the river that runs through it - gripping our attention, burbling and chortling, and inspiring wonder.

The narrator joins the crew of a Mississippi towboat at the beginning of WW II having been refused by the Navy (and having no use for the army) and is soon immersed in his job and in the lives of crew members Shorty, Diamond, and Joe. Work for the crew is brutal, but there is time for trips ashore, hard drinking, good eating, falling in love, and solving problems of the world while pausing long enough to wonder why in the heck they are doing this. This is how they talked; this is how they lived; and sometimes, eloquently and tenderly, this is how they died. Unerringly and with great authenticity, Bissell tells the story of the river and why it grips the men who love it.

"At first I stayed out of stubbornness. Then I began to forget I had lived any other way. Then I began to feel sorry for the people on the bank. When I got that far I was a river man."

A wonderful first book by a treasured American author.

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