Seventeen-year-old Steven "Stiggy" Gabel tries to cope with his father's suicide, his mother's depression, and his girlfriend's departure by taking off down the Great River Road from Minnesota to Louisiana.

Tom Sawyer, an adventurous boy, is as much at home in the respectable world of his Aunt Polly as in the self-reliant and parentless world of his friend Huck Finn. The two enjoy a series of adventures, accidentally witnessing a murder, establishing the innocence of the man wrongly accused, as well as being hunted by Injun Joe, the true murderer.

Finn sets a tragic figure loose in a landscape at once familiar and mythic. It begins and ends with a lifeless body-flayed and stripped of all identifying marks-drifting down the Mississippi. The circumstances of the murder, and the secret of the victims identity, shape Finns story as they will shape his life and his death. Along the way Clinch introduces a cast of unforgettable characters: Finns terrifying father, known only as the Judge; his sickly,...

The people who live in towns and cities along the Mississippi River in the southern United States are a special breed, steeped in 500 years of history as rich as the coffee they drink, or the soil where once the river ran. Mississippi River Country Tales is a fast-paced, easy to read history that covers everything from the early conquistadors and the first Mardi Gras to Fannie Lou Hamer and Archie Manning, and covers the geographic region from Mississippi,...

"From American master James Lee Burke comes a novel set in Civil War-era Louisiana as the South transforms and a brilliant cast of characters-enslaved and free women, plantation gentry, and battle-weary Confederate and Union soldiers-are caught in the maelstrom. In the fall of 1863, the Union Army is in control of the Mississippi River. Much of Louisiana, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge, is occupied. The Confederate Army is in disarray, corrupt...

Two boys, Ellis and his best friend Neckbone, find a mysterious man named Mud hiding out on a deserted island in the Mississippi. Mud tells the boys fantastic stories about his life, including how he killed a man in Texas and vengeful bounty hunters are coming to get him. He says he is planning to meet and escape with the love of his life, Juniper. The boys agree to help him, but it isn't long until their small town is besieged by bounty hunters out...

A Classic American Road Trip Updated and Expanded! The second edition of the popular guide to travel along the Mississippi River now includes more river towns and more ways to get the most from a trip (or many trips) along the Mississippi River. Explore the quiet spaces and bustling places along the Great River Road, from historic small towns to culturally rich big cities. Find out which hikes come with dramatic views of the Mississippi River and...

Most studies of the Mississippi River focus on Union campaigns to open and control it, while overlooking Southern attempts to stop them. This book tells the other side of the story-the first modern full-length treatment of inland naval operations from the Confederate perspective. Jefferson Davis realized the value of the Mississippi River and its entire valley, which he described as the "great artery of the Confederacy." This was the key internal...