Book Review: Wally Lamb explores human cruelty and grace in prison with `The River is Waiting'

San Francisco Chronicle​

10-06-2025

Corby Ledbetter is in trouble.
In Wally Lamb's new novel, 'The River Is Waiting,' Corby has lost his job as a commercial artist and has developed a secret addiction to alcohol and pills, setting him on a dangerous path that leads to an unfathomable tragedy.
Corby starts staying at home during the day with his twin toddlers — one boy and one girl — while his wife works as the family's sole breadwinner. Lying to his spouse that he's looking for a job, he starts his mornings drinking hard liquor mixed with his prescription pills for anxiety, leaving him incapable of properly caring for the children he loves.
A tragic mix up one morning results in the death of Corby's young son when he accidentally drives over the boy in their driveway. Devastated by the loss of little Niko, Corby now also faces a three-year prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter.
'The River Is Waiting' is Lamb's first novel in nine years and a new chance to explore human imperfection as he did in earlier best-selling novels that included 'She's Come Undone,' about an obese adolescent girl awash in depression, and 'I Know This Much Is True,' the story of a man fighting to protect his paranoid schizophrenic twin brother. Oprah Winfrey announced Tuesday that she picked 'The River Is Waiting' for her book club, the third time she's selected a Lamb book.
Almost all the action in Lamb's latest book plays out in prison, an ideal setting to examine the worst and best of humanity. The author taught writing workshops for incarcerated women over two decades, an experience that has helped him to draw a vivid picture of life behind bars, with all its indignities and a few acts of grace.
While Corby is tormented by two excessively cruel guards, he also befriends the prison librarian, who shares book recommendations and homemade cookies with inmates who stop by. She even encourages him to paint a mural on the library wall. Several other prisoners also become friends, including a kind cellmate who looks out for him. Corby later tries to look out for someone else — a severely troubled young inmate who shouldn't have been locked up with hardened criminals.
During his imprisonment, Corby worries about whether his beloved wife, Emily, and their daughter, Maisie, can ever forgive him. But the experience hasn't left him especially enlightened.
At the end, Corby remains mostly a self-centered guy. He's no hero and there's no big epiphany. Like the protagonists in Lamb's earlier novels, he is utterly human, failings and all.
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