River Time: The Frontier on the Lower Neuse - Softcover

River Time is a brilliant account of life on the banks of North Carolina's Lower Neuse River, of the people who live there, and of a way of living in step with the rhythms of the natural world that has all but disappeared today - rhythms replete with fill nets, crab pots, fickle winds, and resourceful neighbors. (6 X 9, 176 pages)

There are a lot of places in the world people want to learn about; if it wasn't for Janet Lembke, however, the Great Neck Point on the Lower Neuse River of North Carolina probably wouldn't be on the list. To begin with, it's hard to find; it's "cut off by water on one side, by a sea of green pines on the other," and the nearest town is twenty-two miles away. The people here are different, too, their sense of time and material possessions deeply affected by the river running near their doors. "On the riverfront house is a word that can be appropriately applied to only a few dwellings." People keep dogs, which Jake the Dogkiller occasionally knocks off, as well as goats, mallards, and their own business. Knock at these doors in the middle of the night and if you are a stranger or even a "weekender" you could wait all night long; if you are a neighbor, there's nothing they won't do. Janet Lembke is a recent but permanent resident who sees herself as in "a halcyon season, the calm that comes after years of child-rearing, the calm before infirmity overtakes the one parent left to us, before we ourselves lose our vigor." Her descriptions of this place and its people are loving, acerbic, enlightening, and entertaining, and while she and her neighbors wouldn't want you to visit, you might just end up wanting to. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister