Mad River Ethos: Will Second Chances Be the Charm?

 Review: Lucrecia Guerrero. On the Mad River. Mouthfeel Press, 2024. isbn 978-1-957840-26-0

 

Michael Sedano 

 

Aside from having double names, and getting caught up in random chance, Rosa Linda and Donnie Ray have nothing in common when they grace themselves with small intimacies that explode in their face in a lethal confrontation with a sexual predator who sets his sights on Rosa Linda on page one of Lucrecia Guerrero's page-turner thriller, On the Mad River (link).

 

The novel offers a keen set of character studies of ordinary working-class gente who are forced to face down enormous events and in the process achieve balance in tumultuous lives. Maybe. Maybe one of them has a happy ending.

 

I hesitate to dub On the Mad River one of those ephemeral "beach read" novels, even though Guerrero's written a book you want to read in one or two sittings or hammock-reclines. Donnie Ray, Rosa Linda, and the other characters, grow on you, and they stay with you when you think the story's over.

 

Rosa Linda's a survivor, a young and attractive woman on her own after a miserable life being bounced around from home to home. That life makes her resilient and pragmatic, and a thief with justifications for her sins. A bus has dropped her off in Mad River, Ohio with only a few coins in her purse, but her boyfriend's life savings hidden in her luggage.

 

A creepy guy named Enon offers the pretty young thing a meal and a ride. Rosa Linda feels the creep in her gut. She hesitates but a fraction, before taking the easy way out of Mad River. She gets into Enon's car. It's a terrible decision, but Rosa Linda's made a career of terrible decisions. This is the first mistake that might get her throat slit, with her own knife, the one she stole from that boyfriend.

 

Donnie Ray is a barroom fist fighter, wound too tight from his own life growing up in Hillbilly Holler and his younger brother's brutal murder. Donnie Ray's blessed with a curious mind and a strong appetite for reading, and cursed to be stuck in the gunsights of gentrification. Donnie Ray's committed to Tara, a local woman, and his friends tell him he's too old for Rosa Linda, but Rosa Linda likes his looks.

 

In another one of those crummy decisions, Rosa Linda sets her sights on Donnie Ray. It's a felix culpa type of decision. When Enon has finally cornered Rosa Linda, it's Donnie Ray who's instrumental in eliminating the predator; hero malgre lui. The fight with Enon brings a purification to Donnie Ray's muddled thoughts and a reaffirmation of his roots in the holler. Rosa Linda's revelation is to understand familia and loyalty.

 

This all sounds like a tidy plot all wrapped up in a neat bundle with no loose ends, but here's the delight of On the Mad River. Author Lucrecia Guerrero doesn't want these characters' stories to end just because the rapist-murderer story ends. These people have lives that must go on, threads that started before the book began, and lives that must go on after that final page and "the end." Guerrero's character development makes this so much more than a mere thriller, a beach read. Readers will wrestle with their own feelings, not liking Rosa Linda all that much, admiring Donnie Ray for his nobility and empathizing with his haplessness.

 

Guerrero's crafted a fine finish. Donnie Ray may have resolved his pain and perhaps he's about to settle down with the community activist to bring a new life to the Holler. Rosa Linda's decided not to steal her adopted family's diamonds, and returns the boyfriend's money in a sincere Dear John letter. With her past placed behind her, Rosa Linda makes an honest decision to take a straight and narrow road to her dreams, doing it the right way this time.

 

This time. New life. In unwrapping these characters' complexities, Guererro discloses an important theme that describes what's happening in Mad River, second chances. Rosa Linda gives herself a second chance to pursue a decent life along with an acting career. She leaves town; Mad River was always to be a temporary delay. Donnie Ray has come to his senses about belonging in the Holler and with whom. He admits some of Tara's upbeat outlook has infected Donnie Ray himself.

 

I don't give Rosa Linda much of a chance to be successful in Chicago, but she's going to give it a go. She started the book with one or two strikes against her already, that second chance looms large in her future.

 

I think Donnie Ray and Tara have a good thing going and Rosa Linda's going to be a bad memory from the start of a long and happy life together. And Enon got what he had coming to him, so On the Mad River ends, if not happily, satisfactorily ever after.