Review - Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

Cover design by Sarah Whittaker

Once Upon a River
Diane Setterfield
Doubleday, 17 January 2019
HB, 420pp

I'm grateful to Doubleday for providing a free advance e-copy of this book via NetGalley.

Well, this book is simply glorious.

Like all the best stories, it opens (I won't say "begins" because the beginning was much earlier, a number of tributary tales feeding into the main course) one dark night when the company are gathered at an inn.

The inn is The Swan at Radcot on the Thames, famed for its storytelling. And storytelling is important in this... story. Setterfield tells her tale, approves the social importance of storytelling in her 19th century setting (with various, wonderful, digressions into local lore, legends, dreams, the histories of her characters - all little stories) and builds into it alternative versions and possibilities. Her characters muse on the past, anticipate the future - with hope, fear, uncertainty - and explore the present as it unfolds.

Back to that dark night. An injured man staggers into The Swan from the river, carrying a dead child. But hours later, she is, it seem alive. Was she dead or not? Those present tell and retell the story. There are various approved additions and endings, while the drinkers at the inn frown on other alternatives. As more happens these alternatives and variations ebb and flow in popularity, joining a repertoire of popular tales which are called for repeated, altered and reworked.

As the story - stories - spreads outwards, though,  it has an impact, sets things in motion, causes a stir.

Something is going to happen.

Across this little corner of Oxfordshire, people get ready. There's Robert Armstrong and his wife Bess, concerned for their little granddaughter, Alice. The Vaughans, whose child vanished into the dark two years ago. And strange Lily White, living in the damp cottage by the river, haunted by visions of her sister Ann.

Three claims on the mysterious girl. In turn these draw in others. The local nurse, Rita Sunday. The Armstrongs' ne'er-do-well son, Robin. A strange man who smells of yeast and strong spirit. A photographer, whose mission is to document the river and its people.

Even a sagacious pig.

Some are searching for the truth. Some want an advantage. Others just want the pain to end.

It's an entertaining read from start to finish. There is villainy here and darkness - rape and murder have taken place. But there is also love and loyalty and longing. Taking place in the year between one winter solstice and the next, Once Upon a River pays great attention to the seasons, to the rising and falling of the river, its quiet flow at some times and raging flood at others. There are countless memories - those stories, again - of deaths in the water, both intended and accidental. And we are told of Quietly, the boatman, who takes travellers whose time has come "across the river".

Throughout, Setterfield manages to make her world of water, oar, bridge, inn and cottage a place slightly distinct, a little kingdom where things are just a little bit different. It is, of course, a world akin to those of other river stories (I thought of The Wind in the Willows and also of Philip Pullman's La Belle Sauvage, which also features an inn) and I could somehow feel the presence of that weight of story behind the writing, diverted the flow, perhaps, here and there, like a submerged stone or a shallow or deep place that you can't see directly. It's almost an eerie feeling, but enjoyable at the same time.

So, like Poohsticks dropped in the water, Setterfield's characters drift downstream, bumping up against one another, separating, getting caught on obstructions or swept along by a current. Every one of them is a gem, whether it's the mixed race Robert Armstrong, wealthy but always on the outside of things, his frankly villainous son, the practical and self-contained Rita with her collection of medical books, Henry Daunt the photographer or poor Lily White. They are all real people, inhabiting this landscape which always, in the end, comes down to the river (excursions further off - to Oxford, to Lechlade (known for its dragons) or even London - feel strained, as though without the river things will go wrong, go off. I mentally cheered each return to the river, to the Swan.

It's a vivid, enchanting and compelling story, like nothing I'd read before.

A real treat.