Perfume River by Robert Olen Butler

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on September 6, 2016

A brief, charitable encounter with a homeless man named Bob Weber causes Robert Quinlan to reflect on his life, particularly a moment during the Tet Offensive when he hid beneath a banyan tree and fired a shot that haunts him. Robert’s brother Jimmy is 68, has been married to Linda for 24 years, but has a thing for Heather, a much younger woman. Jimmy fled to Canada to avoid the draft and has lived there ever since. He has not spoken to his parents or brother in decades.

Perfume River is largely a novel told in memory, the reflections of characters who are nearing the end of their lives. The reader learns the backstory of each character in alternating story segments, but the stories of Robert, Jimmy, and Bob all intersect when Robert’s father, now 89, is in the hospital, facing death. The characters have adjusted to their circumstances, but some baggage can never be put away. The secret Robert has carried about his service in Vietnam is one that he never shared, even with his father, but his father has a secret that he has never shared with Robert. Sharing their secrets might bring them together, but neither man can bring himself to do it.

Family conflict is one of the novel’s driving themes. Fathers, sons, and grandsons have differing perspectives about  the value of military service. The lives and personalities of Bob, Robert, and Jimmy have all been shaped by a militaristic father. Bob’s father was abusive, while the father of Robert and Jimmy was demanding, unyielding, and unforgiving. At one point, Robert’s mother tells his wife that men make wars so that fathers and sons, who have so much difficulty communicating as adults, will have a mutual experience to bond over, but the novel makes clear that bonding is far from inevitable. The impact of war on families is seen in each of the book’s significant relationships.

The embrace and rejection of spirituality is another of the novel’s themes, illustrated by Jimmy’s evolving belief in an afterlife and his wife’s denunciation of that belief, by Robert’s wife’s meditation on mind versus body as she contemplates monuments to women of the past, by Robert’s need for absolution, and by Bob’s delusional fear of the hand of God and his interaction with a pastor who champions the Second Amendment. In fact, Bob draws together the themes of parental conflict and spirituality in his belief that fathers (whether parents or God the Father) are a cause of enduring pain.

Ultimately, this is a novel of reconciliation and redemption. Death sometimes brings an estranged family together, but Perfume River isn’t a feel-good novel. Still, people change over the course of their lives -- in ways both small and dramatic -- and Perfume River illustrates how those changes can have an impact on families.

Some of the scenes, particularly one involving Robert and his father, are intense. In its final stages, a threat looms that causes the novel to build tension like a thriller, but at the same time, the story delivers a series of honest moments that are emotional without being superficial. A powerful novel that doesn’t waste a word, Perfume River proves that Robert Olen Butler is still at the top of his game, particularly as a chronicler of the Vietnam War’s aftermath.

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