The Weight Of Water

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People who have ever felt at a loss with themselves. People who like to adopt happiness as their revenge. People who thought their first kiss way awkward *cringe*. People who always leave the best stories at a sleepover for when the lights are out.

The novel is split into two parts: the present day, told from Jean's point of view and in the present tense; and 1873, told in first person from Maren's point of view, her "memoir". Debate about the identity of the Smuttynose murderer continues to this day, rekindled by the publication of The Weight of Water. "The facts are out there for speculation," Shreve says, "The book is something separate from that debate."

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In a novel everywhere hailed for its beauty and power, Anita Shreve takes us on an unforgettable journey through the farthest extremes of emotion. If we had gone to school together I bet we’d be the best of friends and we’d stay up all night, swapping stories and drinking pop and being giddy. The suspicion that her husband is having an affair burgeons into jealousy and distrust, and ultimately propels Jean to the verge of actions she had not known herself capable of-actions with horrific consequences. I wonder this: If you take a woman and push her to the edge, how will she behave?" The question is posed by Jean, a photographer, who in 1995 arrives on Smuttynose Island, off the coast of Maine, to research a century-old crime. As she immerses herself in the details of the case-a fit of passion that resulted in the deaths of two women-Jean herself becomes caught in the grip of an intense emotion. In The Weight of Water, Anita Shreve tells a story of pain, jealousy, and passion. Her characters and their closest relationships--with siblings, with partners--are trapped in isolated and claustrophobic spaces. Shreve tells the story of the murders of two Norwegian immigrant women on Smuttynose Island off the coast of New Hampshire in the late 19th century. She explores the 19th Century events in the context of a contemporary photographer's trip to the island to capture the location for a magazine story about the killings. The photographer travels to the island in a small sailboat with her husband, daughter, brother-in-law and his girlfriend. In the course of her research for the photo-shoot, she happens upon a previously unknown document, a letter from the one woman in the family who survived the killings. Shreve alternates sections of this letter, which describes what led up to the murders and what happened on the night they occurred, with the main structure of the book which moves fluidly between the interactions among the family of the photographer and the details of the history of the murder as it was revealed in the trial. In this way, Shreve allows the painful unfolding of events in the two different eras to play out alongside one another.

Interwoven with the modern story is the saga of what happened on the island in 1873 when two women were brutally murdered with an ax. This part of the novel, told in a memoir by another woman who hid in a cave after the murders, is even more intense than Jean’s marital woes. I don’t want to spoil any of the delicious narrative surprises Shreve has in store, so I’ll just say that there’s insanity, jealousy and incest at work on the island in 1873—problems that continue to resonate and haunt characters 100 years later. Although I have read only two of Crossan's books. It's safe to say I love her. I read One last year and it actually made me cry and love it so bad, it jumped onto my top #5 spots. Although it has been replaced, but nevermind that. Sarah Crossan knows how to make you feel. She knows how to squeeze your heart and make you use up a whole box of tissues. It is with this diary that the second voice is heard. The diary is written long after the events on Smuttynose, after Maren has returned to Norway and is in the final days of her life. The diary recounts the history of Maren; her marriage and relocation to Smuttynose; the struggles of her new life and her recounting of the events the night of the murders. The diary gives you a real feel for Maren as an individual and especially what life must have been like for a lonely, foreign fisherman's wife on such a desolate island. The plot is a dual timeline that parallels one another. The first timeline is modern day with a photographer and her famous yet emotionally damaged poet husband and young child going on a boat trip with her brother-in-law and his newish girlfriend. She is using the opportunity to work on a photo assignment of a historical double murder that took place centuries ago. During the trip, she notices the closeness developing between her husband and the girlfriend. The second timeline is the events leading up to the double murder. This book was very hard to put down and I was absorbed into the story from the get go.One night, Rachel receives a phone call. The information she is given sets in motion a series of events that will unravel her life, force her to examine past decisions, and take her on a psychologically arduous journey to save her sister. Ultimately she is faced with the an almost impossible choice. Shreve does a decent job of writing suspense here though the technique of switching stories and including a disjointed fragment of the older story at every point of tension in the modern day story began to get wearing after a while. The more measured voice of the nineteenth century woman does counter the sometimes hysterical tone of the modern day woman and the hysterical tone isn't a bad thing, it's a very good portrayal of someone who isn't quite certain what's going on around her and sometimes can't cope with her own thoughts. But I wouldn’t say that this is a particularly sad book. Yes there are a lot of moving poems, especially when Kasienka first moves to England and constantly feels “unwanted and misused”, but I also saw this book as more about finding out who you are and becoming comfortable with it.