Super Short Summary

In acclaimed and award-winning author Bonnie Jo Campbell’s Once Upon a River (2011), a prequel to her first novel, Q Road, we learn the story of Rachel Crane, a teenager growing up in meth country outside Kalamazoo, Michigan, whose somewhat wild mother, Margo, shoots a predatory local man who won’t leave Rachel alone. Once Upon a River flashes back to Margo’s own teenage years in the late 1970s, when she was forced to leave her home to forge a hardscrabble existence while sailing a canoe down the Stark River. The novel explores themes of survival, resilience, and connection to nature. The book contains depictions of sexual assault and violence.