RIVER WITHOUT A CAUSE

An expedition follows in the footsteps of a century-old Amazon River adventure taken by naturalist and former president Theodore Roosevelt.

Former Sports Illustrated senior writer Moses recounts an expedition organized by a world traveler in constant danger of “looking like a rich guy on vacation” and including a descendant of Roosevelt and a handful of fellow travelers. The goal was to follow the president’s path down an Amazonian tributary called the River of Doubt. The author notes numerous good reasons for the name: Stretches remained poorly known, and there was plenty of doubt whether the region would survive the onslaught of diamond hunters, farmers, and others venturing into land inhabited by Indigenous peoples inclined to defend it. The rich guy, Charlie Haskell, was by Moses’ account a master of conjuring up all manner of gear, but his leadership skills were lacking, and he had a dysfunctional relationship with the truth that provides an odd anticlimax to the book. One oddity, which takes some time to suss out, is that the follow-up expedition took place more than 30 years ago; one wonders about the delay, and Moses scrambles at the end to assemble a where-are-they-now epilogue and its rather dispiriting conclusion that “nature is losing the war between environment and development.” There are fine moments of high adventure amid character studies that don’t always reflect well on the characters in question. Satisfyingly, the expedition succeeded in finding spots visited by President Roosevelt and his associate and guide, the brilliant Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon. Still, Larry Rohter’s recent book Into the Amazon depicts the more vigorous life of Rondon, and Moses’ narrative lacks the vivid immediacy of Redmond O’Hanlon’s admittedly goofy In Trouble Again, another Amazonian adventure.

Sometimes a slog, but of some interest to armchair adventurers and history buffs.