Bright Flows the River - by Taylor Caldwell (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

New York Times Bestseller: A man who gained the world but lost his soul faces a critical midlife crisis in this suspenseful and inspiring novel about love and forgiveness.

On a stormy, windswept night, Guy Jerald tried to kill himself. But he did not die. Now, the fifty-five-year-old Pennsylvania powerbroker and business titan--a living example of the American Dream--lies in a bed in a psychiatric hospital. He is on suicide watch, barely able to recognize his wife and two adult children. But a visitor from his distant past will open the floodgates.

During one of the most harrowing battles of World War II, Guy saved the life of fellow soldier James Meyer. Now, James is a celebrated British psychiatrist determined to repay the favor and bring his old friend back from the brink. As the source of Guy's pain emerges, James must come to terms with his own unfulfilled goals and a mounting crisis that will test him in ways he never could have imagined.

Shifting between the past and the present, Bright Flows the River is a story of faith, friendship, and the road not taken, in which a powerful, successful man may finally get the chance to become the person he long ago dreamed he could be.

Review Quotes

"A moving contemporary drama of one man's struggle for power." --San Diego Union

"Few will not be totally engrossed with this tale of a man in midlife crisis who has come close to destroying himself." --Publishers Weekly

"Immensely fascinating." --Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph

Praise for Taylor Caldwell
"Taylor Caldwell spins a yarn with force . . . Her sense of timing and her ability to keep even the most alert reader guessing is something readers don't find very often." --Hartford Courant

"Taylor Caldwell never falters when it comes to storytelling." --Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Taylor Caldwell was one of the most prolific and widely read authors of the twentieth century. Born Janet Miriam Holland Taylor Caldwell in 1900 in Manchester, England, she moved with her family to Buffalo, New York, in 1907. She started writing stories when she was eight years old and completed her first novel when she was twelve. Married at age eighteen, Caldwell worked as a stenographer and court reporter to help support her family and took college courses at night, earning a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Buffalo in 1931. She adopted the pen name Taylor Caldwell because legendary editor Maxwell Perkins thought her debut novel, Dynasty of Death (1938), would be better received if readers assumed it were written by a man. In a career that spanned five decades, Caldwell published forty novels, many of which were New York Times bestsellers. Her best-known works include the historical sagas The Sound of Thunder (1957), Testimony of Two Men (1968), Captains and the Kings (1972), and Ceremony of the Innocent (1976), and the spiritually themed novels The Listener (1960) and No One Hears But Him (1966). Dear and Glorious Physician (1958), a portrayal of the life of St. Luke, and Great Lion of God (1970), about the life of St. Paul, are among the bestselling religious novels of all time. Caldwell's last novel, Answer as a Man (1981), hit the New York Times bestseller list before its official publication date. She died at her home in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1985.