The Forms of Water [Paperback]

Andrea Barrett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1994

Eighty-year-old Brendan Auberon begins a complex journey when he dupes his nephew into hijacking the nursing home van so that Brendan can see Paradise Valley one last time. Reprint. NYT. "

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A troubled family is reunited during a journey to an aging uncle's Massachusetts home.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

After spending his productive years in a monastery near his childhood home, 80-year-old Brendan Auberon is now confined to a wheelchair and a nursing home, where his family pay him occasional obligatory visits. When Brendan convinces his nephew Henry to help him return to the home of his youth, now covered by a reservoir supplying water to the city of Boston, Brendan steals the nursing home van for the adventure. The trip doesn't turn out as planned, but with Brendan and Henry on the run, and various family members in pursuit, it is anything but dull; Brendan, through his last capricious act, serves as the catalyst to set errant family members on the right path again. Barrett ( The Middle Kingdom , LJ 2/1/91) combines family dissension and adventure with healthy doses of faith and optimism. The result is a satisfying analysis of family dysfunction in the spirit of Sue Miller.
- Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. at Carbondale Lib.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press (August 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671795228
• ISBN-13: 978-0671795221
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,065,703 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andrea Barrett was born in Boston, MA in 1954 and grew up on Cape Cod. She studied biology at Union College, in Schenectady, NY and started writing fiction in her twenties, after several brief stints in graduate school. She lived in Rochester, NY for many years and now lives in western Massachusetts with her husband, photographer Barry Goldstein. She's the author of six novels, most recently THE AIR WE BREATHE, and two collections of stories: SHIP FEVER, which received the 1996 National Book Award, and SERVANTS OF THE MAP, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars slow but wonderfully human, September 21, 2003

By 

B. Capossere (Rochester, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Forms of Water (Paperback)

The water in this book is in the form of a reservoir-not a river, not an ocean. That should warn the reader not to expect quick flowing action or "big" momentous events or epic characters. This is a quiet, slow-moving work and it deals in small eddies and ripples. The plot, such as it is, focuses on Brendan, a former monk dying of cancer who wants to see his boyhood home one more time before he dies, or at least, see what he can of it since most of it has been covered over by the reservoir which forced his mother and father (now dead, as are his brother and sister-in-law) off their land. At the start of this journey, we are introduced to the other surviving members of the clan, ranging in age from teens to middle-aged, all of whom are barely holding on to themselves, and are not doing much holding on to each other. All of them, for various reasons, undertake the same physical journey as Brendan and it gives nothing away to the reader to say they eventually all end up in the same spot.
The journeys are clearly more personal and metaphysical than geographical, as is where they end up, both when they all meet and later. Though there is nice, neat symmetry (and a bit of contrivance but since it's the only one we can give it to her) in getting all of them together, the book itself does not tie itself up anywhere near as neatly with regard to the characters or the plot. There are unintended consequences, surprising decisions (ones that surprise even those that make them), poor decisions, misunderstandings, revelations. A few of the characters are sketchy and one or two too easily drawn in broad, one-note strokes (though even these are given by the end a more full, if still cursory, interpretation) but none of the characters at any point ever acts like anything less than a real character and the family dynamics are never less than messy (in other words-also real).
What we see here are the after-effects: the after-effects of a community drowned for "progress", the after-effects of isolating oneself from family and the world entire, the after-effects of death (children brought up by grandparents when their own parents die in a car accident), of witnessing death en masse (several characters were involved in WWII) as well as intimately (one character acts as the caregiver for a dying family member), the after-effects of separation and absence. Some of it is clearly drawn for us, at other times we have to fill in the blanks, and sometimes the blanks are filled in for us but not until the end. It is a subtle work of metaphor and connections lightly but tightly drawn.
It is not a page-turner. It is slow. It is quiet. It is sad at times, funny at times, but always human, always real.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An interesting book., December 6, 1998

By 

Bob Gossom ([e-mail] (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Forms of Water (Paperback)

The synopsis of this book doesn't do it justice. It's really about the long term effects of the early death of parents on the following generations. Brenden is actually a secondary character, whose journey home is the wheel around which the story plays out. It's one of those books I found myself thinking about long after I finished reading it.

5.0 out of 5 stars A "JEANNE'S LIST" SELECTION FOR: PERSONAL GROWTH THROUGH FICTION, December 31, 2011

By 

jill mellick - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Forms of Water (Paperback)

Dr. Jeanne Shutes chose this fine book, together with four other excellent works of fiction, to explore around a theme during one of her semesters of Self Awareness through Literature--the longest running book group known (>40 years). If you or your book group/club are interested in knowing the other four works she chose for this theme or are interested in other thematic collections, you will find these listed on the blog "Personal Growth through Fiction," where her recommendations, chosen from literally hundreds she has read, are offered as a community service for book clubs/groups. All her choices are in paperback and available at Amazon or locally.