A Stretch on the River

by Richard Pike Bissell

Book Overview

In this largely autobiographical story, the lively and nonstop dialogue portrays the excitement, humor, and independence of a hard-working steamboat crew on the upper Mississippi.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0873512200
• ISBN13: 9780873512206
• Release Date: October 1987
• Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 2.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A nice surprise

I came to this Bissell by way of Elmore Leonard. After reading Get Shorty and Pagan Babies, I did some research on Leonard and found that his writing style, the way he he writes dialogue in particular, was heavily influenced by this book.Bissell was a Harvard-educated guy who spent time working on a steamboat on the Mississippi River. In this book he captures the experience: the grueling work, the long hours, the danger, and most importantly, the people and the way the talk. He doesn't coddle the reader one bit. There are very few explanations regarding the technical terms used and most of the time, I had no idea what he was doing other than the fact that it was work and that it sounded hard.He makes a point of contrasting life on the steamboat with life on land. Most of the book takes place on the boat with brief excursions into the port towns up and down the river where he writes of bar fights, love affairs and... well, that about covers it, actually.I saw a lot of similarities between Bissell and Leonard. Particularly in the way dialects were handled. Leonard uses dialogue to drive the plot forward. Bissell uses it more to set a mood. One thing I didn't like about the book: After he makes his way onto the steamboat and is established as a deckhand, the story just sits for long stretches of time (I'm sure that's what these men working on the river did as well). The fact that Bissell doesn't give much explanation to the terms he uses or the work he does makes the long descriptive stretches of daily life on the steamboat hard to get through. Despite that, I'll rank Bissell as one of my more satisfying surprise discoveries in a long while.

I studied some chapters from this book in Lit class.

The chapters were about the lock at Keokuk, republished in the anthology on American Lit that we used, a few years after the book came out. I agree, more profs should teach Bissell. Bissell also wrote the Rivers of America volume on the Mononagehela, based on his piloting experience there, and the book (7-1/2 Cents) which became the musical Pajama Game. This was based on his experiences running his family's garment factory. Then he wrote Say Darling about how the musical was made. ASOTR was a hit when first published in July 1950--it was reprinted twice in July and again in October.

The most accurate depiction of life on a towboat written

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. It may be more a reflection of the type of people who go to the river to work, you can draw a line from Mike Fink stories through Twain and Bissell and find those same people riding boats on the rivers of America's backyards. I believe I read somewhere that Mickey Spillane said Richard Bissells' writing showed him what dialog in a book should be. Bissell's other river book, "High Water", should not be missed. Both books should be available through the Minnesota Historical Society Press.

A wonderful book by a lost treasure of American literature

I am one of the few people out there who not only know who Richard Bissell is, I'm trying to collect all of his books! I actually bought a first edition of ASotR once, thinking it was the only edition, started to read it just long enough to realize how great it was, and lost it. I've read every novel and most of the nonfiction Bissell wrote, and this was going to be the last 'new' (to me, anyway) thing I read by him. I'd read about it plenty of times in glowing blurbs on the back of his other novels.Now, I have to find another one. Do you have any idea where I could find a copy of either the paperback reissue or the original hardback edition? Help a man on his quest!By the way, if you like Bissell, you should probably try reading Charles Portis, who may be even better.

A True American Classic

This is one of the greatest pieces of American fiction ever written. You must check out this hard-to-find classic. If I was an English professor, I'd definitely teach this book