The waters : a novel

Title:

Author:

Campbell, Bonnie Jo, 1962- author.

Summary:

On an island in the Great Massasauga Swamp―an area known as “The Waters” to the residents of nearby Whiteheart, Michigan―herbalist and eccentric Hermine “Herself” Zook has healed the local women of their ailments for generations. As stubborn as her tonics are powerful, Herself inspires reverence and fear in the people of Whiteheart, and even in her own three estranged daughters. The youngest―the beautiful, inscrutable, and lazy Rose Thorn―has left her own daughter, eleven-year-old Dorothy “Donkey” Zook, to grow up wild. Donkey spends her days searching for truths in the lush landscape and in her math books, waiting for her wayward mother and longing for a father, unaware that family secrets, passionate love, and violent men will flood through the swamp and upend her idyllic childhood. Rage simmers below the surface of this divided community, and those on both sides of the divide have closed their doors against the enemy. The only bridge across the waters is Rose Thorn. -- Amazon.

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

383 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Genre:

Domestic fiction.

Subject Term:

Family secrets -- Fiction.

Man-woman relationships -- Fiction.

Violence -- Fiction.

Mothers and daughters -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Michigan -- Fiction.

Publisher:

W.W. Norton & Company,

Publication Date:

2024

ISBN:

9780393248432

Publication Information:

New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, [2024]

Call Number:

CAMPBELL

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003689893	New Adult Fiction	CAMPBELL Bonnie Jo	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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Summary

On an island in the Great Massasauga Swamp--an area known as "The Waters" to the residents of nearby Whiteheart, Michigan--herbalist and eccentric Hermine "Herself" Zook has healed the local women of their ailments for generations. As stubborn as her tonics are powerful, Herself inspires reverence and fear in the people of Whiteheart, and even in her own three estranged daughters. The youngest--the beautiful, inscrutable, and lazy Rose Thorn--has left her own daughter, eleven-year-old Dorothy "Donkey" Zook, to grow up wild.

Donkey spends her days searching for truths in the lush landscape and in her math books, waiting for her wayward mother and longing for a father, unaware that family secrets, passionate love, and violent men will flood through the swamp and upend her idyllic childhood. Rage simmers below the surface of this divided community, and those on both sides of the divide have closed their doors against the enemy. The only bridge across the waters is Rose Thorn.

With a "ruthless and precise eye for the details of the physical world" (Jane Smiley, New York Times Book Review ), Bonnie Jo Campbell presents an elegant antidote to the dark side of masculinity, celebrating the resilience of nature and the brutality and sweetness of rural life.

Author Notes

Bonnie Jo Campbell is the author of six works of fiction, including American Salvage, finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Once Upon a River, a national bestseller. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, AWP's Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, and a Pushcart Prize, she lives outside Kalamazoo, Michigan, with donkeys.

Reviews (1)

Publisher's Weekly Review

The evocative if meandering latest from Campbell (Mothers, Tell Your Daughters) portrays an herbalist and her family living off the grid on a swamp-enclosed Michigan island, a gauzy out-of-time setting meant to suggest a realm of myth. Hermine "Herself" Zook has long made herbal medicines with the help of her mother's ghost. Some on the mainland see her as a witch, however, and no one knows why she banished her husband from the island 15 years earlier. After Rose Thorn, 18, the youngest of Herself's three adult daughters, gives birth to a baby girl named Donkey, Rose Thorn confides to Herself that Donkey is not the daughter of her boyfriend Titus Clay Jr., but the result of a rape by his father. Rose Thorn pleads with Herself not to tell anyone, and Herself raises Donkey in the family's island cottage. Rose Thorn spends most of her time with her sister in California while her daughter yearns for her to reappear and marry Titus Jr. At 11, Donkey must contend with news of her mother's breast cancer and revelations about her family's lineage. Baggy writing, drawn-out scenes, and twee character names aren't doing this story any favors, but Campbell's immersive descriptions manage to suck the reader into its swampy setting. Patient readers will be carried away. (Jan.)