Gently Down the Stream

By Ray Robertson

Book Overview

Hank Roberts can't buy a thrill. His wife, Mary, his best friend, Phil, Phil's annoying new girlfriend and Canada's hottest new female novelist, Rebecca ” everyone but Hank, it seems ” has either become what they set out to be or are well on their way to getting there. Hank isn't old, but he's not young anymore, either; is bright, but by no means brilliant; is undeniably restless, but not by any stretch ambitious. He loves his wife, his dog, and rock and roll, but lately that just doesn't seem to be enough. Doomed, apparently, to be just another overeducated and underachieving Toronto thirty-something, Hank gets jarred out of his itchy complacency by a chance musical encounter at a Friday-night karaoke bar and his realization of the increasing gentrification of his west-end neighbourhood and, by extension, of the mind-numbing homogenization of the world around him. Aided by just the right amount of chemical self-medication and armed with only a karaoke microphone and a midnight vandal's sack of eco-warriorism goodies, Hank sets out to reenergize his life and save the planet, or least his little part of it. The question of whether or not his marriage, his sanity, or that very world itself can survive his determined efforts makes Gently Down the Stream Ray Robertson's most engaging, searching, and mature novel yet.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1896951678
• ISBN13: 9781896951676
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Cormorant Books
• Length: 335 Pages

Customer Reviews

Marvelous!

It pulled me gently along for the first half of the novel - just charming me with its marvelous sense of humour and the comforting shared experience of modern life in Toronto Ontario. And then the little clues that Robertson had been dropping all along suddenly added up to something deeply compelling and I was hooked and shocked at how desperately I'd become attached to the hero and how I felt his jeopardy as if it were my own. Robertson has a rare gift. He writes with the perfect balance of subtlety that keeps the reader constantly engaged in the story. He doesn't tell you anything. He takes you to his world and leaves you there. 4 and a half stars! Cheers.