AislingTransmedia

What the River Kept

Tomás Hale

Status
Available
Territories
Worldwide
Chain of title
Independently held — verified
Rights available
Film & television · Audio · Stage
AvailableLiteraryFeature

What the River Kept

Tomás Hale

A hydrologist returns to the drowned town of her childhood after a drought pulls the steeple back into the air.

Published
2023
Length
276 pages
ISBN
978-1-998201-07-6
Source format
Novel
Scale
Contained
Audience
Adult
Setting
A drowned American town, present-day drought
Territories
Worldwide
Chain of title
Independently held — verified

Adaptation

A contained feature: a hydrologist returns when drought pulls a steeple back into the air. Climate as plot, family as sediment. The town is the set — mud, porches, a church that was never as gone as the maps claimed.

Synopsis

The reservoir was supposed to be forever. A summer of drought returns the church, the post office, the porch where her father smoked. Mira is sent by the state to measure what the water gave back. What it kept, she already knows. What the River Kept is a novel of return: climate as plot, family as sediment, a town that was never as gone as the maps claimed.

Comparable films / series

Nomadland; Beasts of the Southern Wild; Minari

Comparable books

Salvage the Bones; Gilead; The Overstory

Awards, sales & credentials

Independently published 2023. Literary-prize longlistings. No prior screen option.

Rights on offer

  • Film & television
  • Audio
  • Stage

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