Fiction to lean into, to absorb, to take your time reading
Author Bonnie Jo Campbell’s newest novel, “The Waters,” is not to be missed if you like dense, provocative fiction.
My review is currently up on MER Motherhood Literature and Art magazine.
“There were herbs in the Waters of Massasauga swamp that could be rendered into medicines for just about every affliction: yarrow and plantain for bleeding wounds, elderberries and boneset for flu, willow bark for fever, and foxglove and dandelion for too much pressure in the body… and if you asked Herself to make a water or tonic to fix you, she would study the veins in your hand and the whites of your eyes while considering what kind of poison to add… Bloodroot? Snakeroot? Rattlesnake venom, if she had it?”
The Waters is a spellbinding and brutal story about about an aging herbalist, Hermine “Herself” Zook, and her granddaughter, who live in a cottage on a marshland island in a farming township in rural Michigan. The farmers, like the herbalist, struggle to find balance the modern world, a recurring theme. Men are uncertain where their loyalties should lie. Rural folk are wary of hospitals and modern medicine. The people of Whiteheart resent Hermine precisely because they need her potions and poisons; others vilify her for the cure that starts a woman’s monthly bleeding again. They spy on her, fire guns into the Waters, and argue over whether she’s a savior or witch…
Read my entire review on MER
Purchase The Waters on Amazon or Bookshop or even better, order it from your local independent bookstore.
Thank you for visiting.
Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a writer, poet, and artist:
Multi-finalist award winning novel In the Context of Love
Picture book Gordy and the Ghost Crab
Latest poetry chapbook: Sleepwalker
Connect with Linda: LinkTree