The Waters

May 1, 2023

On an island in Michigan's Great Massasauga Swamp, herbalist Hermine "Herself" Zook tends to 11-year-old granddaughter Dorothy, nicknamed Donkey, who was abandoned by a mother as intimated as the residents of nearby Whiteheart by Herself. Donkey longs for her mother's return, not realizing that family secrets are about to explode in her face. From National Book Award finalist Campbell (American Salvage). Prepub Alert.

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August 1, 2023
Familial and communal conflicts roil a swampy corner of Michigan. A fairy-tale atmosphere coexists with harsh realities from the opening sentence: "Once upon a time M'sauga Island was the place where desperate mothers abandoned baby girls and where young women went seeking to prevent babies altogether." The island is home to elderly Hermine "Herself" Zook, who fabricates medicines from wild plants that populate the wetlands separating the island from the town of Whiteheart, and her 11-year-old granddaughter, Donkey. The girl is nicknamed for the animal milk that nourished her as an infant after her mother, Rose Thorn, left her with Hermine. Rose was raped by Titus Clay Sr., the father of her true love, and chose flight over telling Titus Jr. She lives in California with her sister, Primrose, who broke up the Zook family by having an affair at 17 with Hermine's husband, her adopted father. Women are not merely victims, and men are not only predators in Campbell's complex portrait of rural society, which includes several scenes with a drunken chorus of local men displaying confusion over their place in the world--as well as an ongoing fascination with the beautiful Rose Thorn, who makes periodic appearances to unsettle poor Titus Jr. Third sister Molly, nurse at a nearby hospital, also drops by to proclaim the dangers of Hermine's off-the-grid lifestyle and the urgent necessity of sending her niece to school. Donkey, more comfortable with math and animals than people, is torn between her desire for an education and loyalty to her grandmother, both revered and stigmatized by the locals who buy her potions but view her as more or less a witch. The wise woman privy to nature's secrets has become an overused fictional trope, but it's mitigated here by Campbell's sharply drawn characters and her refusal to make easy judgments about them. A birth rather predictably reconciles the town's men with the Zook women, but the new arrival does not solve everyone's problems. Campbell's thoughtfully rendered characters find life rewarding and bewildering in equal measures. Atmospheric, well written, and generally satisfying despite some overly familiar elements.

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November 6, 2023
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.

November 1, 2023
Place is key to Campbell's resounding novels and short stories, including Once upon a River (2011) and Mothers, Tell Your Daughters (2015). In this tour de force, this intricate, visceral fairy tale, place is the thrumming heart. The Waters is a fertile Michigan swamp, home to generations of women healers, with the indomitable Hermine "Herself" Zook now reigning supreme. She has raised three daughters, Primrose, a lawyer in California; Maryrose, a nurse who lives nearby; and "lazy and beautiful" Rose Thorn. Adored by all and in epic love with farmer Titus, Rose Thorn returns from an ambiguous absence with a baby girl who is not his. Named Dorothy for Rose Thorn's love of the Oz books and called Donkey for the animal who saved her life, she reaches the age of 11 as an exceedingly tall, curious, and courageous prodigy enthralled by both nature and mathematics. As Rose Thorn holds tight to the anguished secret of Donkey's violent origins, Herself is mysteriously injured, and Donkey protects a fearsome rattlesnake. Campbell's intimate knowledge of this vital wetland and the wonders of its plants and creatures infuses every vibrant, bewitching, and wrenching scene as she entwines the struggles of her passionate characters with the creeping decimation wrought by pollution and climate change. This is a verdant, gripping, and clarion saga of home, family, and womanhood, of meaningful work and metamorphosis, of poisons and antidotes, and the urgent need for us to heal and sustain the imperiled living world that heals and sustains us.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Readers cherish Campbell's fiction and word is out about her magnificent new novel.

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