If the missing-person element provides the current that sweeps Riverman forward, the book amounts to much more: a portrait of forgotten American byways and the eccentric characters who populate them, a cursory history of river travel in America and, not least, an effort to solve the riddle of Conant himself — not only his whereabouts but also his elusive and irresistible nature. As a chronicle of perseverance and inchoate questing, this quietly profound book belongs on the shelf next to Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild.

Mr. McGrath knew a good story when he saw it. He had stumbled upon an archetypal American outsider, a brilliant, sociable, sensitive misfit whose journeys harked back to America’s early romance with rivers.

Fascinating.

McGrath retraces the remarkable life of this gentle man whose life on the water touched so many. Riverman honors a free-spirited American naturalist and modern-day explorer (a blend of Forrest Gump, Huck Finn, and even Don Quixote) who shucked a conventional lifestyle for complete freedom, at significant personal cost. A masterpiece of narrative nonfiction..

An intriguing character study for anyone interested in the life of a man with an adventurous spirit and an engaging personality, who collected friends across the country..

Ben McGrath has a journalist's nose for news and telling details and a novelist's ability to tell a suspenseful story with vivid portraits of ordinary people such as Richard Conant, who did extraordinary things.

[A] mostly riveting though sometimes meandering story.

Captivating.