I read this book because it was claimed as the best book last January by the Christian Science Monitor, saying, “The Waters is an indelible portrait of rural Michigan and the women tough enough to live there, with writing so evocative it practically sprouts in your hands. Lush, brackish, and bracing, The Waters is not so much read as steeped in.”  I spent my first 25 years in Michigan, so put it on my to be read list.

This book is raw, vividly atmospheric, closely textured, and an exquisitely written book that was difficult to get through. I almost stopped reading it (because of guns, cancer, rape, adultery, the beating of animals, and being a bit bogged down – pun intended –with minute details). But when I got 70% of the way, it all started coming together, and then it became a compulsive page-turner, becoming worth the slog.  The ending pulls it all together in an unexpected way. As another reviewer said, the book is “an invitation to celebrate life in all its beauty and complexity.”

It is mostly about strong female characters, including Hermine (“Herself”) Zook, who is a matriarchal herbalist that heals people and looms large over everyone, and her precocious granddaughter, who is nicknamed Donkey. Maybe it is really about the odd assortment of three daughters in between, who are named after roses–the youngest’s name is Rose Thorn– which gives the whole story the mood of a Grimm’s fairy tale. It is also about the rattlesnakes that live in the swamp, finding the truth regarding staggering secrets, honoring the landscape, about how the future must be different than the past, about men needing to be better, and about abuse in almost every form.

However, I keep thinking about it, so I decided to review it for you. I give it four stars.