Breathing Water
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
“A poignant, clear-eyed novel” about a Vermont homecoming and a reckoning with tragedy (The New York Times Book Review).
Effie Greer has been away from Lake Gormlaith, Vermont, for three years. Now she is coming home. The unspoiled lake, surrounded by dense woods and patches of wild blueberries, is the place where she spent idyllic childhood summers at her grandparents’ cottage. And it’s where Effie’s tempestuous relationship with her college boyfriend, Max, culminated in a tragedy she can never forget.
Effie had hoped to save Max from his troubled past, and in the process became his victim. Since then, she’s wandered from one city to another, living like a fugitive. But now Max is gone, and as Effie paints and restores the ramshackle cottage, she forms new bonds—with an old school friend, with her widowed grandmother, and with Devin, an artist and carpenter summering nearby. Slowly, she’s discovering a resilience and tenderness she didn’t know she possessed. And buoyed by the lake’s cool, forgiving waters, she may even learn to save herself, in this “impressive” novel of hope and absolution from the award-winning author of Where I Lost Her (Booklist).
“Startling and fresh . . . ripe with originality.” —San Diego Union-Tribune
“A vivid, somberly engaging book.” —Larry McMurtry
“Greenwood sensitively and painstakingly unravels her protagonist’s self-loathing and replaces it with a graceful dignity.” —Publishers Weekly
“With its strong characters, dramatic storytelling, and heartfelt narration, Breathing Water should establish T. Greenwood as an important young novelist who has the great gift of telling a serious and sometimes tragic story in an enterta
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The specter of domestic violence haunts this poignant debut, as Effie Greer, a young woman in her 20s, struggles through an agonizing love relationship and its devastating aftermath. After learning of her abusive ex-boyfriend's death from a heroin overdose, waifish Effie returns from three "fugitive" years in Seattle to her grandmother's Vermont cabin on rural Lake Gormlaith. She had fled the idyllic lakeside to get away from Max, a violent alcoholic, after he accidentally caused the death of an 11-year-old black girl spending the summer with a lake family. Chapters alternate between Effie's return in 1994 and her years (1987-1991) with Max, providing contrast between the tenacious survivor Effie becomes and the self-destructive victim she was. She had not only failed to "help erase the scars" of Max's horrific childhood, but had become the object of his hatred, subsequently turning his malice onto herself in the form of anorexia. And she feels that her decision to leave Max may have contributed to the little girl's tragic drowning. But Effie is thrown some lifelines, reconnecting with a former schoolmate who herself had an abusive relationship. She discovers that the source of small, precious gifts left on her doorstep (a perfect robin's nest, tadpoles, a jar of fireflies) is Devin Jackson, a young black artist and carpenter. By the time Effie realizes Devin's relationship to the drowned girl, she is ready to lay ghosts to rest. The vulnerable and childlike Effie vacillates between extremes of despair and faith, the uplifting ending waxes maudlin in places and Effie's triumph can seem platitudinous. Despite her occasional overreliance on these extremes, Greenwood sensitively and painstakingly unravels her protagonist's self-loathing and replaces it with a graceful dignity.
