Blackwater: The Complete Saga

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This was an absolutely fantastic experience, the sort of long book that introduces a large cast of characters over time so you're able to remember (almost) all of them and their stories, and become interested in their lives, their children, their fortunes, and their deaths. And every once in a while there's a scene of gruesome supernatural horror to remind you that this ain't Faulkner or Flannery O'Connor.

So get your feet wet ”in the churning water dyed the color of the clay beneath---dyed red, Perdido red” and swelter a while with the people of Alabama as they clean up their water swollen hymnals, bump the alligators off their front porch, and try to restore their town to dryland. Rest assured, I’ll be reading the rest. When Oscar Caskey finds the mysterious Elinor Dammert on the second floor of a hotel during a great flood, he brings her home and falls in love with her. But Elinor isn't what she seems and Mary-Love, Oscar's mother and matriarch of the Caskey clan, doesn't want Oscar marrying her... Overall, there is a slight supernatural twist to this that the author isn't really making a mystery about. The reader is shown early on who the supernatural element is and even what (at least to a degree). This supernatural seed is growing in the Perdido river, triggering a number of events, some of which I did see coming and some of which I didn't expect.Elinor loves her family, she does very well by them, and you really want to like her, except that the some of the acts she commits are less justifiable than others. Going into detail would be spoilery, but let's just say that while some of her victims deserve it, others very much do not... and the consequences of those acts will haunt her family (literally) for generations, until Elinor herself is reclaimed by the waters of the Perdido.

I believe this book is now my favorite book. Originally written as a series, I read the edition with all the smaller books combined into one. I'd heard it was magnificent and didn't want to have to be continuously buying each new one. Michael McDowell created an epic story of multiple generations in a small Alabama town. There is an element of underlying creatures that bump in the night but it is so small that it really just blends in to the beautiful whole. This is the only book I've read by McDowell and I plan to read the rest of what he has left for us. McDowell wrote the screenplays for Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas if that gives you any idea of his brilliance. I can't really put into words what is so amazing about this book but it was fabulous enough that I had to take extended breaks away from it because I was so distressed to see it end and to lose these characters. Such a sadness to know that McDowell (lost to AIDS-related illness in 1999) is not around writing any longer. You won't regret reading this book. there is more horror in the plot summary blurb than in the actual book. this is not a horror novel. it pokes at the swamp monster subplot but rarely and not in any meaningful way. the story is about a swamp monster who decides to stop being a swamp monster and live as a person among people and is basically about a person moving to Alabama (it could have as easily been a yankee as a swamp monster). it is a great Southern Gothic novel. I actually think the book would be better if the swamp monster subplot were removed, honestly.This whole town’s gone have trouble when the water go down. So let’s don’t look in no more windows, Mr. Oscar. Don’t know what we gone see. The writing reminded me a lot of Jeffery Archer's style (note, I've only read one book of his, but...) : while I became very familiar with the characters, I didn't find there was a whole lot of depth to many of them. Familiarity was gained by exposure to them and how the story carried them along. The characters that were fleshed out better were known through dialogue, which, at times, was where McDowell really excelled. The book primarily features conflict between strong female characters, first between Mary-Love and Elinor, and the conflict is carried on down the line. It could easily be a great historical novel if Elinor wasn't a man-eating river monster in disguise. All the maneuverings reminded me of Game of Thrones, only played out in an Alabama river town over the course of three generations.

That “stamp” keeps the town from whispering too much about a single, lovely, redheaded woman living in the house of a married man while the wife is on “holiday.” Cold Moon Over Babylon (1980), reissued in 2015 by Valancourt Books, with a new introduction by Douglas E. Winter. A young girl's mysterious disappearance in quiet Babylon, Florida, awakens a horror in the Styx River that draws the Larkin, Redfield and Hale families into a supernatural web of murder and madness. Where were you coming from? asked Annie Bell Driver. One of the children, a colored one, had awakened inside the church and now peered sleepily out the front door. The only character I really warmed to was Frances Caskey, and even then, I only started finding her interesting when she began becoming more aware of her nature and realizing who she really is. I would have loved it if this aspect of the story had been explored more deeply, but that thread of the tapestry was snipped off much too soon for my taste. I found book four to be quite slow and dull, but thankfully things got interesting again through book 5.

McDowell collaborated with his close friend Dennis Schuetz in writing four mysteries starring Daniel Valentine and Clarisse Lovelace: Vermillion (1980), Cobalt (1982), Slate (1984), and Canary (1986). The four novels were published under the pseudonym Nathan Aldyne.

We learn this early in book one. So, really y'all, I'm not spoiling things (much). But the fact that throughout the entire series, Elinor spends 99% of her time as an iron-willed Southern matriarch, waging a war of wills against her mother-in-law for the first few volumes, scheming to enrich her husband and her family and to get her way against the wishes of the domineering, spiteful Mary-Love Caskey is what makes that other 1% so much more horrific, when she periodically assumes her true form, usually to perform some act of gruesome violence. He looked down the long uncarpeted hallway. There was no case. He saw nothing. He paused a moment, waiting for Mr. Oscar’s voice to demand that he go farther. But no voice came. Bray breathed relief, and eased the door closed. He returned to the window and climbed carefully out into the boat. It was while he untied the tethering rope slowly, savoring the notion of his having come through this unpleasant adventure safely, that Bray noticed what he had not seen before: the sunlight shining through the window now illuminated the high-water mark on the dark-papered walls. It was two feet higher than the head of Elinor Dammert’s carefully made bed. If the water had risen so high as that, how had the woman survived? The series had some ebbs and flows for me. Book one was a very strong start, and through book three, the family story was quite interesting. Of course, the most interesting thing was the anticipation of how this was all going to pan out. Which is why this didn't maintain the 5 star status I had going for the first half of the series. Bray restò impietrito, con il remo nell’acqua. La barca andò a sbattere contro il muro di mattoni, e i due passeggeri vacillarono, scossi dall’urto. The novel spirals more and more out of control as Elinor and Mary-Love become more creative in their battles to control each other.

I had a really great time with this, and I can't always say that about epic family dramas. Sometimes I get annoyed with them and just want the whole thing to just wrap up, but that was never the case with this one. McDowell never kept us in suspense about the big stuff. We knew how this would end and he delivered in style. It started with a flood and ended in one. :) Blood Rubies (1982), reissued in 2017 by Valancourt Books. Separated as newborns by the fiery death of their mother, twins Katherine and Andrea each possess one of a pair of heirloom ruby earrings. Though unaware of each other's existence, a string of gruesome tragedies conspires to reunite the sisters.