Oprah Picked It, So Did Obama — Why This Novel Is THE Summer Book

Little, Brown and Company
evocative and accessible, Nathan Harris ‘s introduction novel The Sweetness of Water is a historical page-turner about social clash therefore brawny it ignites a whole township.

Old Ox, Georgia, is a community attempting to right itself after tectonic agitation. Focusing on the period just after Robert E. Lee ‘s surrender at Appomattox and the enforcement of emancipation in the South through the presence of Union troops, Harris asks a doubt Americans have even to figure out : How does a community make peace in the aftermath of civil war ? I ‘m not indisputable the novel comes close to finding an answer. But posing the wonder and following through the ferment undertake felt incredibly worthwhile however. Between Oprah ‘s Book Club, President Obama ‘s summer interpretation list and the Booker Prize long list, The Sweetness of Water is having a here and now that goes beyond topicality. There are several reasons for that : first, its interview feels pressing and familiar, because politics now feels like war. Between the January rebellion, the threat of Texas secession, and the daily rhetoric of battle and rotation, the battles are ongoing, not merely along party but besides regional lines. Second, the peacemaking project attempted on these pages is still clearly unfinished. Like a fabricated companion to Clint ‘s Smith ‘s history How the Word is Passed, The Sweetness of Water joins the national conversation on race and reckoning with history already in progress. In struggles over flags, monuments, textbooks, and university tenure, we ‘re hush fighting over how to frame this event in public memory, so those old wounds feel peculiarly fresh. Nathan Harris makes those extraordinary, calm contested times comprehensible through an immersive, incredibly humanist storytelling about the lives of ordinary people .

‘The Sweetness of Water ‘ is having a moment that goes beyond topicality. There are several reasons for that .
And third gear, correct immediately, we urgently need to believe in our better angels, that we besides can come together and rise above, like Harris ‘s protagonists ( and as President Obama famously urged ). That promise is the driving storm in The Sweetness of Water. It takes flight when three men meet by probability in the woods — two Black, one white. George Walker, an aging white landowner, has spent excessively long out there hunting an elusive prey when he comes across Landry and Prentiss, two young Black freedmen who ‘ve been secretly living in the afforest on George ‘s property because they have nowhere else to go, and lack the resources to move on. They only know they ‘d rather be anywhere than back at their honest-to-god plantation, where the owner is in dispatch denial about Emancipation and still considers both men his true property.

An unlikely connection takes root

Despite common trepidation, the three decide to treat each early with care. slightly disoriented and in annoyance, George asks for help getting back to his cabin and his wife, and he offers the two brothers food and protection in the barn. It does n’t sound like much — but in that context, cooperation is an work of kindness and trust. Plus, there ‘s more to Geoge ‘s wandering that day ; he ‘d precisely gotten the ( erroneous ) news that his son, Caleb, a Confederate soldier, was killed in action and dreaded sharing that with his wife. Harris spins an increasingly complex narrative about the postwar South, and he tells it in a humanist and intimate room, by exploring the interpersonal relationships of all kinds in and around this rural Georgia town .
In the days that follow, a connection takes root. Bereft himself, George does n’t know how to help his grieving wife, but he needs to do something. so though he ‘s always avoided diligence, with Landry and Prentiss ‘s help, he decides to start farming his bring. It ‘s a mutually beneficial musical arrangement, a prerequisite on both sides : Landry and Prentiss wo n’t accept a fresh master-slave type arrangement of the kind that ‘s proliferating in the area, and that ‘s fine, because George has no desire to be a master. He ‘s always lived apart from Old Ox, in geography and attitudes. To his mind, this is no different. so he ‘ll pay them a fair wage, the lapp as any other ( white ) workers. The brothers agree to work until they can save money to move north, and George gets help getting his fresh guess off the prime. emancipation or not, this agreement represents a gap of centuries-old social arrangements. And so even though their business does n’t immediately affect any other person in Old Ox, every white person in proximity has an opinion on it, as though Landry and Prentiss ‘s bare universe is even another diss and assail on their lives. From there, Harris spins an increasingly complex narrative about the postwar South, and he tells it in a humane and confidant way, by exploring the interpersonal relationships of all kinds in and around this rural Georgia town. In small moments, Harris convincingly captures the thoughts and actions of ordinary people trying to push through extraordinary times.

They ‘re all connected and interdependent ; a fracture or ripple in one inescapably affects the others. The Walkers treating Landry and Prentiss with respect causes not equitable a ripple in those relationships — more like a disgust. The petit larceny ferociousness of the reactions to the Walkers ‘ arrangement with Landry and Prentiss can be maddening, and so far it rings true : american history is littered with events that began with a breach of racial etiquette. In small moments, Harris convincingly captures the thoughts and actions of ordinary people trying to push through extraordinary times. And even though the report focuses on hope and unexpected kinship, it does n’t diminish the horrors of slavery or the conflict in its wake up. The events of their former lives are never far from memory — beating, beat, disfiguring physical pervert, kin separation, near starvation, dehumanization. none of that is denied. none of it is minimized. Like the brothers, Harris tries to train the focus elsewhere for a fourth dimension.

Water taps into a profound American thirst

As an act of pure storytelling, it soars. On a deeper tied, however, some aspects of the novel tactile property unsettled and incomplete. The Sweetness of Water taps into America ‘s longstanding and profound thirst for fantasies of racial reconciliation — stories in which Black people and egg white people find salvation together, bonding in the face of the crying extreme racism of others. equally appealing as they are, these narratives tend to reproduce certain baffling patterns. First, while seeming to focus on crucial issues, these narratives actually highlight individual exceptions to systemic problems that need real interrogation. Second, evening in stories where Black people should naturally be the focus ( as in The Help and Green Book ) they tend to marginalize Black characters in order to center and affirm the virtue of full whites. And third base, they can provide easy absolution without deeper reflection ( again see The Help, Green Book ).

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I felt those tensions keenly reading this novel, but while it flirts with the edge, it does n’t quite fall into the expiate. The dispute is that The Sweetness of Water is n’t a narrative about what happened to the enslaved after slavery ‘s end, coopted to focus on a white family. It ‘s a saponaceous and riveting drama-filled exploration of a fracture and a healing. The stress on an interracial hurl is an necessity, feature preferably than a flaw. I only wish the ensemble was a little more interest in the fullness of its Black characters ; I yearned to spend more than snippets of time with Landry, Prentiss, and George ‘s confidante Clementine. It ‘s easy to love George and Isabelle — and Caleb, finally — but I do n’t think they ‘re inherently more desirable of our focus and nuance, or tied more essential to the redemption report being told. The novel seems to follow the logic that it ‘s the white inhabitants of Old Ox whose adjustments to life post war are most worthy of our attention. But if Landry and Prentiss are worthy of driving the legal action, if they are worthy of risk and keep open, then they are worthy of depth. They ‘re beautiful characters I wish I ‘d gotten to know better .

The story is captivating — but the omissions are hard to ignore

They ‘re not the merely ones neglected. The Sweetness of Water is highly selective about where it casts its lens. It ‘s a fib at once set in history, yet removed from it. In the stress on the Walkers and what they do for Landry and Prentiss, there ‘s besides a glaring omission of the realities of station war life elsewhere in Old Ox. Though Harris is generous to these blue-ribbon few white Southerners, he shuts out facts that are necessity to understanding the world they inhabit, even if at a absent.

Harris captures ashen anger and resentment at loss of white support, life style and status. The novel briefly references the grating reentry to company of white men who returned from a fall back war lacking jobs and money and the restoration of pride. But in this period the losses were not merely symbolic or even fabric. There was besides enormous loss of life in the Civil War, one in five young men, according to some estimates. But there ‘s an eerie secrecy about those who did n’t return — the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in the war and how their absence shaped the lives of those they left behind. Where were those widows and fathers and mothers and friends ? adenine much as I was captivated by Harris ‘s storytelling while I was in the dense of everything, in the goal, I felt his omissions and oversights equitable as acutely. The Sweetness of Water left a survive and multifaceted mental picture : It ‘s warm and absorbing, thought agitative and humane. But ultimately uneven in its ideas — a koran whose rapport always so slenderly exceeds its art. A dull runner and fast reader, Carole V. Bell is a cultural critic and communication scholar focusing on media, politics and identity. You can find her on Twitter @ BellCV .