There is a River is the story of two seemingly incompatible families thrown together by the outworking of their competing motivations - kindness and greed, hope and despair - and the proximity of their home places in rural South Carolina. Caroline, the adolescent daughter of country gentleman and novelist Gordon Clement, befriends Mangel, the fortysomething retarded son of Welborn and Hazel Ricketts, a crusty backwoods couple with a dark and mysterious past. Hungry for the unconditional kindness he receives from Caroline's family, Mangel falls in love with the girl's beautiful yet unaffected mother Frances, who recognizes his feelings for just what they are - the long overdue emotions of an adolescent experiencing his first puppy love.
But when the malevolent Welborn and his reprobate nephew Harley carry out their plan to kidnap Caroline, the Clements' idyllic lifestyle suddenly comes unglued. In New York with his literary agent scrambling to meet the deadline for publication of his third novel, Gordon returns to find the sheriff and his deputies combing his property, hot on the trail of Caroline's abductors. Through the crisis of Caroline's kidnapping each of the main characters comes to a crossroads - some receiving the gift of faith and others rejecting it. The childlike trust of the novel's central character - the once-pathetic Mangel - ultimately binds the families together, and out of his weakness emerges a strength born of the abundant grace of God and the irrepressible love of his mother.
Bursting with hope, the author's second novel is a triumph of the forces of good over evil - and of faith over despair.