Books by Melinda Flurry
One River
The story of two generations of scientific explorers in South America—Richard Evans Schultes and his protégé Wade Davis—an epic tale of adventure and a compelling work of natural history.
In 1941, Professor Richard Evan Schultes took a leave from Harvard and disappeared into the Amazon, where he spent the next twelve years mapping uncharted rivers and living among dozens of Indian tribes. In the 1970s, he sent two prize students, Tim Plowman and Wade Davis, to follow in his footsteps and unveil the botanical secrets of coca, the notorious source of cocaine, a sacred plant known to the Inca as the Divine Leaf of Immortality.
A stunning account of adventure and discovery, betrayal and destruction, One River is a story of two generations of explorers drawn together by the transcendent knowledge of Indian peoples, the visionary realms of the shaman, and the extraordinary plants that sustain all life in a forest that once stood immense and inviolable.
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$20.99
One River
Treacherous currents of custom, class, race, and gender flow beneath surface waters of the Ganges and Mississippi rivers. Two lives from their shores converge in "One River."
Willa Lutz is a 27-year-old reclusive painter from Memphis who rebels against her wealthy family. Drifting and aimless in 1987, she's on the verge of losing her dilapidated yet beloved old house to foreclosure. Her father agrees to bail her out one last time as she relents, accepting his hastily made-up job assignment for her in Germany. Unimagined adventures and travels to India and Nepal unfold where she explores friendship, love, and an understanding of her own place in the bigger world.
Jaya Patel was wed at age 14 but she is not the typical rural Indian child bride. After her only brother died at a young age, her father raised her with the privileges typically reserved for boys. She learned to read and write English and she fell in love with books. She attempts to keep this secret as she succumbs to the status quo, functioning as an obedient and traditional rural wife. When her mother-in-law dies, Jaya's role within the family is redefined and challenges within it erupt.
When Willa and Jaya meet an unlikely friendship is forged as their cultural identities are challenged while spiritual fires are ignited, and funeral pyres emerge and threaten. "One River" is an immersion into their unique friendship as they struggle to break free of cultural and familial expectations in an effort to uncover their own peace and purpose.
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$16.99