"A gripping story that explores the origins of the movie industry with characters that are as memorable as they are realistic"     -  Readers Favorite review

“From fake news stories... to crowds rioting for contact with celebrities, the novel is rife with events echoing our present times..."

"Downriver is compelling, entertaining reading, and for anyone with an interest in the history of film, particularly women in film, it’s essential."  -- Amazon Kindle reviews

The story: A teenaged girl from a small Midwest town escapes from an orphanage, leaves town on a showboat, learns stagecraft, and is present at the birth of the American movie industry – as a director.

She becomes involved with some of the leading film people of that time: Alice Guy Blache, Florence Lawrence, Lois Weber, Nell Shipman, and the author of the first book of film history, the poet Vachel Lindsay. A major section of the book is set in Fort Lee, NJ, capital of film-making in the pre-Hollywood era.

" As testament to Anderson’s integration of fact and fiction, and absorbing character development, his fictive character Anne seems to have earned a place in the history of motion pictures by novel’s end." -- Amazon Kindle review

Behind the Scenes at the Birth of the Movies

Anne Blackstone is a sixteen year old girl from a small town on the banks of the Missouri River at the turn of the twentieth century. Anne is the sworn enemy of the "Church Ladies," black-clad members of the Ladies' Aid Society, who run an institution for orphans and homeless children. After the death of her father in a barge explosion, Anne lives with her ailing mother in the town's poorest district, The Meadows.

The Orphan's Revenge

Upon the death of her mother, Anne is sent to the Home for Orphans run by the Church Ladies. With the aid of a waterfront madam, Ann escapes the Home, leaves town with the company of a traveling showboat, and later joins a touring motion picture exhibitor. Along the way, she learns the craft of directing: for the stage, then for the infant industry of moving pictures, pre-Hollywood. She enters the field before it becomes a big business, when motion picture language was being written, and when women, even from a lower class, had access to its creative tools.

With a cast of strong characters, both real and imaginary, Downriver gives readers the experience of what it was like to be alive at the origins of an industry which is, today, so much a part of our lives.

Evan Anderson is originally from Los Angeles and now makes his home in New York's Hudson Valley. While growing up in L.A. he became fascinated with the making of movies, with a definite focus on the "classic" (his favorite film year is 1928!) He visited movie studios, collector's shops and revival houses, in particular the Vagabond and Silent Movie Theaters.

While doing some family research,  Evan discovered that his late grandfather, Robert Lovelace Barrett, had an extensive career in Hollywood, first as an extra and featured player, then as a studio projectionist at Warner Brothers. It was around this time that Evan began work on "Downriver." As his search into his grandfather's career grew, so did "Downriver" - from short story, to novella, to a full length tale of a small town girl's life during the earliest days of American cinema.

Evan's short story "The Passion of Saint Hayakawa" was published in the collection Prima Materia, Vol. 2. He has written scripts for children's theater and an homage to classic radio of the 1940's, The Adventures of Marjorie. "Downriver" is his first novel.