The River King
There are two things any reader can count on when coming to  Alice Hoffman: her prose and a remarkable empathy for those who  live on the fringes of society. In her 13th novel, the author turns  both to good account. Set in a tony private school located in a small  New England town,The River Kingtraces an intricate weave of  intersecting lives over the course of a year.  The Haddan School,  founded in 1858, has long been the scene of tragedy and wonder: during  its first year a tremendous storm flooded the grounds, and more than a  century later "frogs can be found in the plumbing; linens and clothes  stored in closets have a distinctly weedy odor, as if each article had  been washed in river water and never thoroughly dried." Then there are  the glorious roses planted by Annie Howe, a villager who married the  headmaster and later hanged herself; these flowers have an unusual  effect on sensitive girls. "When such girls walked past the brittle  canes in the gardens behind St. Anne's, they felt something cold at the  base of their spines, a bad case of pins and needles, as though someone  were issuing a warning: be careful who you choose to love and who loves  you in return."A cogent warning indeed, for as in all of Hoffman's novels, the  question of whom one chooses to love and who loves in return is the  crux of the matter.The River Kingrevolves around triangles.  First there is Betsy Chase, a young photography teacher at the Haddan  School who has gotten herself engaged--almost  accidentally--to a fellow  faculty member, even as she is inexorably drawn to Abel Grey, a town  policeman. Then there are Carlin Leander, a scholarship student, and  her best friend, Gus Pierce. While Carlin is able to fit in, even  attracting the interest of the most popular boy on campus, Gus is a  defiant outcast, a tall skinny kid in a long black overcoat "who viewed  his own life as a prison sentence and experienced his existence much as  a condemned man might." Carlin's romance with the charismatic, cruel  Harry McKenna creates a rupture between her and Gus, and fuels a  mean-spirited practical joke with horrific consequences. In the  aftermath of tragedy, each character's heart, conscience, and courage  is tested in unexpected ways.Hoffman spins her web of love and heartbreak and transcendence with a  sure hand, and in the process creates characters so palpably human in  all their petty flaws and small instances of heroism that one almost  expects them to step out of the book and into the room. Indeed, if  there is a flaw inThe River King, it is that Alice Hoffman  doesn't always trust the magic inherent in her characters, relying a  little too heavily at times on somewhat precious invocations of the  otherworldly. But this is a minor defect in an otherwise satisfying  novel, one that will keep the reader spellbound by its emotional  complexity and compelling story.--Alix Wilber