Without creating a compelling case for her heroine choosing to ground herself, Campbell allows Margo to waver without justification over decisions that might have come easy to her earlier.

Bonnie Jo Campbell might well be called the Bard of Michigan — if only ''bard'' didn't sound so stuffy and ''Michigan'' didn't sound so 
 nondescript as a global positioning device to locate such a vivid and mesmerizing novel as Once Upon a River. Fact is, Campbell is a bard, 
a full-throated singer whose melodies are odes to farms and water and livestock and fishing rods and rifles, and to hardworking folks who know the value of life as well as the randomness of life's troubles.