Parish Rivers

Parish Rivers has always had a deep appreciation for studying people and the very different ways they navigate the world around them. He believes humor is one of the keys to getting through life somewhat sane, and to recovering from the times you didn’t quite succeed at the sanity part. After a start in life that provided an unpleasantly close look at how poverty, racism, disability, and institutional failures affect people, he enjoys throwing some less restrained characters into the mix and creating stories with more satisfying outcomes than the real world often provides. For him, stories are most intriguing when characters can no longer avoid the complexities of morality and the internal negotiations required when life presents them with only flawed options. Economics, institutional failure, and the power imbalances created by disparities in wealth provide some of his favorite backdrops. A longtime mystery reader, Rivers always wished he had a designated chair in Nero Wolfe’s office, somewhere to settle in and enjoy a beer. That affection for fictional places that become almost as familiar as the characters helped inspire Heron County: somewhere readers can return to, get to know the inhabitants, and feel increasingly at home—even when what those inhabitants are getting up to is decidedly less comfortable. And since life is worth very little without humor, love, and friendship, those always play prominent roles too.