Oprah Winfrey has selected Wally Lamb’s The River Is Waiting as the latest pick for her book club.
Lamb’s novel, published Tuesday by Marysue Rucci Books, follows a young father, Corby Ledbetter, who is sentenced to prison after accidentally killing his son while under the influence of drugs and alcohol. While incarcerated, he develops relationships with his fellow inmates and a prison librarian, giving him hope for the future. A critic for Kirkus wrote of the book, “This sometimes-gripping, sometimes-labored story of grief, guilt, and healing is uneven, like the recovery it chronicles.”
This is the third time Winfrey has selected a book by Lamb for her club; she previously featured the author’s She’s Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True.
Winfrey announced the novel’s selection on CBS Mornings with Lamb by her side, and explained why she picked a third book by Lamb for her club. “Wally is such a profoundly outstanding magician of words….When I started reading this story, I started to think, immediately in the first chapter, of real-life stories that I’ve done for so many years on the Oprah show.”
Asked how he reacted when he got the phone call from Winfrey telling him that his new book made the cut, Lamb said, “This is the third time, and it was just as shocking as the other two. I couldn’t believe it, and yet, I felt really comfortable because we had talked several times before, and [Winfrey has] that gift of making people feel comfortable.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
