Customer Reviews

Michael McDowell's Blackwater II: The Levee

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I read this series when I was 18 (many years ago!) and still have the entire original set. Don't just stop at the second book - the enire series is wonderful. I love the strong and eccentric southern women and the intricate plots they weave.

'The Levee' is the second installment of Michael McDowell's southern gothic soap opera: 'Blackwater'. Reading the first installment, 'The Flood', is mandatory. In 'The Levee' we find the sleepy town of Perdido, Alabama changed with the construction of a levee. Yet our mysterious leading lady, Elinor, still creeps us out.


Bottom line: a bit silly yet thoroughly enjoyable. Southern Alabama has never be so spooky.

Michael McDowell's ghoulish serial soap opera continues as Blackwater makes plans to build a levee to prevent future floods from occurring. Meanwhile more horrible accidents and illnesses plague the Caskey family. Are these tragedies linked to the Caskey's most recent addition, as one family member has come to believe? Recommended.

Since Amazon deleted my earlier review of Blackwater II: The Levee, I had to rewrite it again. So here it is.

Following her mysterious appearance during the flood of 1919 in Perdido, Alabama, Elinor Dammert marries into the town's leading family, the Caskey's. After surrendering her first child, Miriam, to her possessive mother-in-law, Mary-Love, Elinor settles down to a contented married life with Oscar, her happiness marred only by the town's plans to build a levee for protection against future flooding. Although Elinor insists that no flood will ever again come to Perdido while she is alive, an engineer named Early Haskew is brought in to supervise the project.

To spite Elinor, Mary-Love invites Early to stay with her and her spinster daughter, Sister, who promptly begins scheming behind her mother's back to marry the engineer. Sister is aided in her efforts by the occult conniving of Ivey, the family cook. Elinor, still unhappy about the levee but tolerant of Early and Sister's marriage if only because it makes Mary-Love so upset, gives birth to a second child, Frances. Frances will be her child as Miriam never could for it is apparent from the very beginning that Frances shares Elinor's mysterious otherworldly heritage.

James Caskey, Oscar's widowed uncle, is paid a visit by his penniless sister-in-law, Queenie, and her two children, Malcolm and Lucille. Queenie claims to be escaping from her husband, Carl, and clearly wishes to take refuge with the Caskey's. Although she at first appears to be a conniving opportunist, when her husband shows up and rapes her, she is accepted, with various degrees of sympathy, into the Caskey family, with Elinor as her prime sponser.

This second book in the 'Blackwater' series adds more depth and mystery to both Elinor Caskey and the town of Perdido itself. Laid back southern hospitality and gentle backstabbing rule the day. Make sure you have book three handy, you won't want the Caskey's world to end just yet. Enjoy!