A master of rural noir returns with a fierce, mesmerizing novel about exceptional women and the soul of a small town.
On an island in the Great Massasauga Swampâan area known as âThe Watersâ to the residents of nearby Whiteheart, Michiganâherbalist and eccentric Hermine âHerselfâ 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 youngestâthe beautiful, inscrutable, and lazy Rose Thornâhas left her own daughter, eleven-year-old Dorothy âDonkeyâ 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 âruthless and precise eye for the details of the physical worldâ (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.
"Bonnie Jo Campbellâs The Waters is a novel, a living myth, and a place. âŚ
Imagine a mash-up of Flannery OâConnor and the Brothers Grimm, of Angela Carterâs reimagined fairy tales and William Faulknerâs gothic sublime. And yet, The Waters is all Bonnie Jo. âŚ"âDIANE SEUSS, Pulitzer Prizeâwinning author of Frank: Sonnets