Riverman

amid scattered dories in a seven-knot current, at around 10 a.m.

The canyon walls receded and he shot out into the valley, flanked in the near distance by ten-thousand-foot peaks. Cottonwoods lining the banks yielded summer snow to the flukey breeze. On the water, swirling eddies materialized and vanished inexplicably, while rainbow trout breached in the periphery of his vision. Paradise Valley: a name well deserved. Conant had traveled much of the world, and set foot in all forty-eight contiguous states, and he deemed this the most picturesque river valley he had experienced up close.

Afternoon brought heavy weather and a slalom course, as the straightaways shortened and he coped ably with shoals and rapids. Somehow, in the course of sliding forty-five miles, he scraped just two rocks. And then, half an hour before sunset, he arrived, brimming with adrenaline, in Livingston, a town that seemed composed of equal parts galleries and saloons. Yuppies and cowboys. A man like Conant an old art major with Falstaffian appetites could imagine getting used to such a place.

But he was on a mission, of a sort. He had notions of spending Christmas in Mississippi (Natchez or Vicksburg), and of ringing in the millennium in New Orleans. He thought it best not to tarry, as he liked to say, thinking of his deceased father, an army colonel with a performative sense of rectitude. He won a little money gambling at a hotel casino on the south end of town, and spent the extra cash on Bernard DeVoto s abridged Journals of Lewis and Clark, good companionship for a transcontinental river trip.

In a park near some ballfields, while Conant repacked his boat, a young brunette was walking her dog. They got to talking. Her name was Tracy. She seemed intrigued by his plans, maybe even impressed by his derring-do. Conant, who had been dressing more

original named Richard Conant, an inveterate river wanderer whose travels throughout America revealed methodical planning, great endurance, a touch of foolhardiness and no small amount of physical courage for a man not in the best of health  A fascinating story with heart, grit and consummate flow."
Bill Thompson, The Post and Courier

"A terrific feat...Riverman is nonfiction at its best." 
Cary Knapp, Coastal Illustrated

"Exquisitely written and deeply reported, Riverman is a gem of a book. It contains everything: adventure, mystery, travelogue, and unforgettable characters. Most of all, it illuminates the wonderful curiosities of life."
David Grann, bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon

Riverman is as miraculous and hopeful as its protagonist, the Zelig of America's waterways, Dick Conant. It s a great book for people like me, who read Into the Wild but have shed our self-destructive wanderlust and settled into middle-age. This book will make you want to buy a canoe and spend less time on Instagram.
Emma Straub, bestselling author of All Adults Here

This is a beautifully told and near-mythical tale of one man s quest to find peace through communion with nature, and through perpetual motion. My heart was deeply stirred by Riverman, and by Ben McGrath s brilliant, clear, and humane storytelling. This one will stay with me for a long time.
Elizabeth Gilbert, bestselling author of City of Girls

"McGrath s reconstruction of Dick Conant s tangled career and yearning soul is so meticulous, so obsessive, that Conant comes to life on the page as vividly as any character in American literature. Conant wanted his story told. Here it is, in all its pathos and sheer unlikeliness. You will never see rivers and the towns on their banks the same way after reading Riverman. Ditto, I predict, for expansive, raggedy strangers."
William Finnegan, bestselling author of Pulitzer Prize winner Barbarian Days

"The captivating story of an inveterate river wanderer who left a mark on many he met along his journeys before suddenly vanishing... A paean to eccentricity and endurance and a study of a life that changed the chronicler s own perceptions. McGrath s writing is measured and confident, the product of a journalist s persistence in investigating the truth behind so colorful and contradictory a figure... A memorable and intoxicating exploration of what we make of those who reinvent themselves."
Kirkus, starred

"McGrath retraces the remarkable life of this gentle man whose life on the water touched so many. Riverman honors a free-spirited American naturalist and modern-day explorer (a blend of Forrest Gump, Huck Finn, and even Don Quixote) who shucked a conventional lifestyle for complete freedom, at significant personal cost. A masterpiece of narrative nonfiction."
Booklist, starred

"McGrath exquisitely recovers the life of the affable transcontinental canoeist who had intrigued him when they once met on the Hudson River...McGrath does more than chronicle Conant s life through the folkways and lives of those in the river towns he visited; he evokes a magical, almost wistful, dimension to this genial, manatee-shaped character in overalls."
The National Book Review

"An intriguing character study for anyone interested in the life of a man with an adventurous spirit and an engaging personality, who collected friends across the country.
Library Journal