No one was simply virtuous, and the people who did the right thing did so for unclear reasons. Lisa’s Thoughts: One of my favorite things about this book was the way the different characters were portrayed.
There were some stumbles, and I’m not sure this is a Booker book- like many of the books on the longlist, it feels like a reading group book. Waxing poetic here, but this was a lot to tackle. Harris did a nice job of juggling all the above and adding in a plot line- a journey, but not just the journey of characters, but the journey of a country. That’s a lot to expect from a new author. It addresses racial tension and cultural misunderstandings, homosexuality and the abuse that can occur within a relationship, sorrow and loss, and the confusion of how to start again after over 300 years of a system that has been abolished. Set at the end of the US Civil War, it shows that not all whites in the South were in favor of slavery, and it shows that the underdog has a voice. Tracy’s Thoughts: For a debut novel, there is some power in this book.
I can see Landry and Prentiss sticking with me for a while yet and I think we could all learn a thing or two from George & Isabelle Walker. He lives in Austin, Texas.īookWorm’s Thoughts: For a debut novel this is powerful stuff to say I enjoyed the story would be wrong as parts are too brutal and tragic for enjoyment but I did appreciate the story. The Sweetness of Water is his debut novel. He was awarded the Kidd prize, as judged by Anthony Doerr, and was also a finalist for the Tennessee Williams fiction prize.
Nathan Harris is a Michener fellow at the University of Texas. But this sanctuary survives on a knife’s edge, and it isn’t long before the inhabitants of the nearby town of Old Ox react with fury at the alliances being formed only a few miles away.Ĭonjuring a world fraught with tragedy and violence yet threaded through with hope, The Sweetness of Water is a debut novel unique in its power to move and enthral.
When the brothers begin to live and work on George’s farm, the tentative bonds of trust and union begin to blossom between the strangers. Forced to hide out in the woods near their former Georgia plantation, they’re soon discovered by the land’s owner, George Walker, a man still reeling from the loss of his son in the war. Synopsis from Booker Prize website: In the dying days of the American Civil War, newly freed brothers Landry and Prentiss find themselves cast into the world without a penny to their names. Book 9 – Read and reviewed by BookWorm, Tracy, Susie & Lisa
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