2024~24. The Sweetness of Water

Nathan Harris. 2021.

This is another book with a ton of critical success that I had a hard time really connecting with.  It is historical fiction, set after the American Civil War in the Reconstruction Era in the South with multiple intersecting storylines.  The characters were complicated to the point of being unpredictable, with no one portrayed as entirely evil, nor entirely good.  The complexity of this is approach to character development is generally something I love, but here I thought it might have been overdone as there were times when the people did things that seemed very out of character for them and, seemingly just when their character has been laid out for the reader in a particular way.  I was put off by the frequency of this technique because it started to feel overdone.

I did love the way the historical part of this historical fiction was handled, without fanfare or the scene development that I can find boring in this genre.  Here, the backdrop of time and place felt well developed, but was just that--the backdrop to a novel, not a historical tome.  

The beginning of the book--and continuing very far into the book--is heavy with grief.  And that depression hangs over the entire story, even while it is interspersed with explicit love scenes.  Those scenes, though, are always tainted with the weight of the homophobic of the time.  Indeed, there is very little light in this book as one horrible thing after another happens.  There is a long, drawn out, death that is painful not only for the person dying, but also for the caregiver. 

For sure, there is resilience in many places here and I love the vision the one woman character has for the future of the land she lives on, but unless you are looking for a heavy, heavy read, I would say pass on this one.

The author does get bonus points for having been born and raised in Oregon and being a graduate of U of O. I am hoping for a second novel with more joy and light.

Not not recommended.

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