title: River of Heaven: A Novel
author:  Lee Martin 
description: Pulitzer finalist Martin (<i>The Bright Forever</i>) returns with a meandering, convoluted tale of an elderly gay man who gets jolted from his lonely life. Sammy Brady's quiet existence with his basset hound, Stump, gets interrupted by neighbor Arthur after Arthur's wife dies. Outgoing Arthur places himself in Sammy's tiny orbit, and the two are soon building a ship-shaped dog house for Stump while Sammy ruminates on a secret he's not ready to reveal. When a reporter for the local paper shows up to interview Sammy about the unorthodox dog house, the experience jars Sammy; the reporter is a relative of Dewey Finn, Sammy's childhood friend who mysteriously died on a railroad track. The slow pace picks up when Maddie, Arthur's granddaughter, arrives. Cal, Sammy's alienated brother, is soon on the scene, jump-starting a complicated plot that involves the Michigan Militia and a violent antiques collector bent on securing an item Cal's hiding. Not everyone survives what follows, and Sammy finally reveals the truth about his friend's long-ago death. Martin crafts eloquent sentences, though he often succumbs to Sammy's syrupy nostalgia and has trouble propelling a labyrinthine plot.<i> (Apr.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text: Beyond Heaven's River
  
   **Beyond Heaven’s River**
  
  _Greg Bear_
  
  An [ _**e - reads**_ ] Book
  
  _No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
  by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopy, recording,
  scanning or any information_ _storage retrieval system, without explicit
  permission in writing from the Author._
  
  _This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
  products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
  to actual events or locals or_ _persons, living or dead, is entirely
  coincidental._
  
  _Copyright 1980 by Greg Bear_
  
  _First e-reads publication 1999_
  
  _www.e-reads.com_
  
  _ISBN 0-7592-2258-4_
  
   **Author Biography**
  
  Greg Bear’s stories and novels have won him an important place in the science
  fiction community.
  
  Initially, Bear was an illustrator for SF novels in the 1970’s. He has since
  gone on to a prolific writing career. His short story, Blood Music, which he
  later rewrote as a n