Overview

In the isolated 1940s bottomlands, a stoic farmer afflicted by uncontrollable weeping and her fiercely rebellious teenage daughter must bridge a bitter generational divide to survive a devastating flood and the heavy, unspoken burdens of maternal love. Faye carries two heavy burdens through the muddy dirt roads of the Arkansas bottomlands: a woven basket of fresh eggs to ensure her family's survival, and a terrifying, undiagnosed disorder that seizes her with uncontrollable, breathless sobbing when the weight of the world becomes too much to bear. Her only solace is found on the wraparound porches of neighboring farms, trading her eggs and reading borrowed library books aloud to a quiet, deeply understanding sisterhood of rural women. Her teenage daughter, Ruby, wants absolutely nothing to do with her mother's tear-soaked life. Desperate to escape the stifling poverty and secondhand embarrassment of the quiet farm, Ruby chases the fast-paced, dangerous thrill of the hidden riverbed juke joints. She views her mother's relentless weeping as a pathetic surrender to their hard life, completely unaware of the fierce, protective love behind every single tear. When a brutal, unseasonable storm causes the river to swell, washing out the dirt roads and sealing off the bottomlands from the rest of the world, the silent war between mother and daughter comes to a devastating head. Forced together to fight the rising floodwaters and protect their fragile home, Ruby must finally look past her own resentment to understand the profound, heartbreaking strength it takes to be a mother. A deeply moving, cozy drama, When the River Learned to Speak is a story about the heavy burdens we carry, the quiet power of a shared book, and the unbreakable, enduring roots of family.

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