Water Music (novel)

Water Music  

US edition cover
Author(s) T. C. Boyle
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Novel
Publisher Little Brown
Publication date January, 1982
Media type Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages 437 pp (First edition, hardcover)
ISBN ISBN 0-316-10467-1 (First edition, hardcover)
OCLC Number 7733729
Dewey Decimal 813/.54 19
LC Classification PS3552.O932 W3
Preceded by Descent of Man
Followed by Budding Prospects

Water Music is the first novel by T. C. Boyle, first published in 1982. It is a semi-fictional historical adventure novel that is set in the late 18th and early 19th century. It follows the parallel adventures and intertwining fates of its protagonists Ned Rise, a luckless petty criminal, and the famous explorer Mungo Park - the first of which being a purely fictional character, the latter being based on a historical person. The book takes place in various locales in Scotland, England, and Western Africa. It revolves around two Imperial British expeditions into the interior of Western Africa in an effort to find and explore the Niger River.
The novel is loosely based on historical sources, including Mungo Park's 1816 book, Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa. However, as Boyle admits in his foreword to Water Music, he doesn't claim historical accuracy or even faithfulness to the contemporary accounts, whose reliability is doubtful anyway.

Book information

Water Music by T. C. Boyle

From the author's website: Although the book was published in 1981, it was released in early January, 1982.

External links