Wastvedt, Tricia 1954–

PERSONAL: Born 1954, in London, England.

ADDRESSES: Home—Bath, England. Office—School of English and Creative Studies, Bath Spa University, Newton Park Campus, Newton St. Loe, Bath BA2 9BN, England.

CAREER: School of English and Creative Studies, Bath Spa University, Bath, England, tutor in M.A. program. Has also worked as a secretary, gardener, and designer.

WRITINGS:

The River (novel), Black Cat (New York, NY), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: In The River novelist Tricia Wastvedt examines the darker side of English country life. The story begins in the late 1980s and follows the career of Anna, an unmarried mother from London who arrives in the Devonshire village of Cameldip to give birth in seclusion. She is welcomed by Isabel MacKinnon, a local woman who thirty years ago separated from her husband, Robert, after their children Catherine and Jack drowned in the local river. Isabel's capable reputation, however, conceals a mental illness that has been brewing since the accidental drowning decades ago. She begins to lose touch with reality after Anna's child, Matthew, is born, confusing him with her lost son, Jack. Complicating matters is Anna's budding relationship with Josef Sevier, Catherine and Jack's friend who escaped drowning with them and has borne a burden of guilt ever since. "Then," explained a Publishers Weekly reviewer, "a teenage crush threatens Josef and Anna's tentative relationship, the patter of small, ghostly feet haunts the town, and Isabel's implacable grief veers toward madness."

Critics celebrated the author's accomplishment, lauding her ability to weave together the idyllic English countryside with the more macabre elements of her story. "Wastvedt," said a reviewer in the London Guardian, "steers a clear course through a narrative of escalating suspense." "Wastvedt's flowing, long-winded tale, set in a Constable landscape in a parallel universe," concluded a Kirkus Reviews contributor, "is a deft but peculiar fusion of gothic and rhapsodic."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 1, 2005, Misha Stone, review of The River, p. 1143.

Guardian (London, England), July 17, 2004, Rachel Hore, "Devon and the Deadfolk."

Library Journal, February 15, 2005, Barbara Love, review of The River, p. 121.

Publishers Weekly, March 28, 2005, review of The River, p. 54.

Times (London, England), March 14, 2005, "Orange Prize for Fiction—The Long List."