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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
The Boy by the River’s Edge by A. Rz. Diamante is a memoir set in the Philippines, following the author from his birth in 1948 near Lake Lanao in Mindanao into adolescence in Cagayan de Oro during the 1950s and early 1960s. The book stays close to the texture of daily life as Diamante moves through homes shaped by his father’s government postings and his mother’s trading work. Childhood unfolds through concrete moments that leave marks over time, including an infant’s fall into Lake Lanao, punishment after skipping school to go to the river, long days spent near the bakery ovens, and hours roaming streets where play and danger exist side by side. As Diamante grows older, readers are shown how a boy absorbs lessons through life, all while growing up inside a changing post-war Philippines.
A. Rz. Diamante’s The Boy by the River’s Edge is a beautiful memoir that records a Filipino childhood. There are moments that steady the reader and moments that unsettle them through details such as a school Mass where heat leads to fainting and later recovery, set beside a quiet library routine where reading becomes a daily refuge during adolescence. Diamante comes across as extremely likable, and his writing style is so conversational that it feels, genuinely, like a chat with an older friend. I love that Diamante is proactive in weekend newspaper selling that funded book rentals for his classmates, and his depictions of patient services at daily Mass, where he memorizes Latin responses and shows up before dawn. Overall, this memoir is also a time capsule, and readers with an interest in Southeast Asian history, especially in mid-twentieth-century Philippines, will enjoy this book as much as I have. Very highly recommended.
