Book Report: The Sweetness of Water

10. Nathan Harris, The Sweetness of Water (2021) (5/20/22)

I believe I found this book thanks to President Obama's annual reading list (2021). It is a beautifully written debut novel about a short period of time immediately following the Civil War, in and near the Georgia town of Ox Bow. At its center, at the start, is one George Walker, an older farmer who's never had much interest in farming but who inherited his land and knows it intimately from his frequent wanderings in the woods. On one such, he bumps into a pair of newly freed slaves, brothers, Prentiss and Landry, and he takes them under his wing, developing a new interest in raising tobacco in the process. (It is perhaps not insignificant that George's father was from Connecticut, so George is not a hardened Southerner.) 

Meanwhile, George and his wife, Isabelle, learn from their son's best friend that their son, Caleb, was recently killed in the war—a coward, running from battle. In fact, that proves not to be the case. Other things, too, turn out to be . . . different from what had been assumed. There is violence. Alliances in and around the town begin to change as George becomes more of an outsider than he already was.

The first half of the book is slow, establishing character and place, mood and emotion. Then the cataclysmic event occurs, and the pace picks up. The effect is a bit schizophrenic—not necessarily in a bad way: the second half is simply quite different, and the characterization and mood become a little less assured, giving way to action. There is also a shift in focus, as characters move in and out of the picture.

I very much enjoyed this book, especially given that this is Harris's first book. I learned something, given the historical setting; I felt for the characters and their situations; I was satisfied by the outcome. 

Here's an excerpt, which explains the title:

Landry roamed the countryside as he pleased. The desire to do so, the fascination with it, had once been a fear: whenever he'd stood before the forest with Prentiss in the flitting sunlight, the darkness in its farthest reaches had always felt like a monster lying in wait, one who had taken down his name long ago, eager to stake its claim on him. That was the dread Prentiss was blind to and that Landry could not describe: that these were two different worlds. That this new one might consume them as it had consumed their mother, and Little James and Esther [all of whom had run away from the slaveholder], and then what?
     But it turned out that each step did not bring danger. The unknown led only to more clearings, more sunlight on the other end, and so it dawned on him that there was less to fear than he'd once imagined, which was maybe a truth he'd long wished to believe—that all danger carried the faint trace of comfort, all wrongs the hint of what may be right. How else to explain a world of cruelty that had also carried in it the great joy of watching his mother at the mercy of Little James's fiddle on a Sunday afternoon, the miracle of a fresh tick mattress, the sweetness of water after a day spent picking in the fields?

I will certainly be looking for Harris's next book. His use of language is so beautifully assured, the world he creates complex.