The River's Memory

A woman born without legs spends her days swimming with manatees. Two artists, separated by centuries, guide each other's hands. And a child of the Florida frontier sits on the graves of her siblings to think about race relations and the habits of caterpillars. These are some of the women who live along the banks of a river where water billows from caverns of silent lakes. None of them are famous. None have children. Instead, their stories exist in a mosaic of time and shadowed history, and the things of the river—clay and water, trees and bone—carry their memories forward.

"The writing—over and over again—is beautiful, transcendent, and engaging." Connie May Fowler, author of Before Women Had Wings and How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly

"The River's Memory is at once lyrical and brutal, uplifting and devastating. Sandra Gail Lambert has an ear for the poetry of voices, the music of land, and the roar of history. - Tayari Jones, author of Silver Sparrow and Leaving Atlanta

"Here are stories from the boneyard of the Florida peninsula, digging deep and calling out old spirits in this eclectic and brave . . . fiction from the inimitable Sandra Gail Lambert. This is a literary adventure to the heart of a place." - Janisse Ray, author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood

“Lovingly crafted details abound, succinctly revelatory of women’s lives … Lambert portrays many mesmerizing characters over the centuries whose lives entwine with that of the river.” – Booklist