Thicker Than Water: A Novel [Kindle Edition]

Kathryn Harrison (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A story of obsession, selfishness, lust and despair, Harrison's accomplished first novel deals with a dysfunctional family and the enduring psychic damage inflicted on a child. The narrator, Isabel, tells of growing up in L.A., the product of a brief teenage union between a vain, paranoid, destructive girl from an eccentric, wealthy, Jewish family, and a warped, brutal youth with a "heritage of Catholic poverty." Emotionally abandoned by both parents (she is brought up by grandparents; her mother lives nearby but withholds intimacy; she doesn't see her father until her adolescence), Isabel accepts perverse ways of earning their favor. As a child, she is sexually abused by her mother; later, her father will repeatedly rape her. Equating pain with endearment, and sexual submissiveness and degradation with sanctification, Isabel pleads for a declaration of love from her mother as the latter dies of cancer, but is denied even that succor. Harrison relates this story in hypnotically intense prose, somewhat broadening the claustrophobic viewpoint of her protagonist by evoking what in outward respects is a typical California childhood in the 1960s. Impressively in control of her material, she will be heralded as a promising new writer. BOMC and QPB alternates.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Caught in the throes of an intense struggle to break out of her dysfunctional family and to gain the love of her mother, Isabel uses drugs to free herself of her emotional pain, enters into sexually submissive relationships, and engages in any action or situation that she can possibly think of to win her battles. At times the novel appears to border on melodramatic soap opera, crammed with every awful, sleazy situation that could make it a best seller. Then the reality of Isabel's desperate situation takes over. Despite the melodrama, Isabel's search for self is eloquently told in the pages of this psychological novel. Reading more like a journal, this first novel is rich in character development, motivation, and plot. Isabel's struggles and final triumphs over all the atrocious things she has endured make this truly a "woman's" novel. For popular fiction collections and libraries having a large female clientele. BOMC and Quality Paperback Book Club alternates; previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/90.
- April Judge, Thousand Oaks Lib., Cal.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 352 KB
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint edition (June 9, 2009)
• Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B002BH5HNU
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #224,685 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

Author Photo by Joyce Ravid.

Kathryn Harrison was born in 1961 in Los Angeles, California, where she was raised by her mother's parents. She is a graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writers Workshop, where, in 1986, she met her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison. They had a first date on Friday, April 25, and on Monday, April 28, they moved in together. The Harrisons married in 1988, and live in Brooklyn with their three children. Kathryn writes novels, memoirs, personal essays, biography, and true crime. She is a frequent reviewer for the New York Times Book Review, and teaches memoir at Hunter College's MFA program in Creative Writing, in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good read, but not a light one, December 10, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Thicker Than Water (Paperback)

I read Kathryn Harrison when I'm feeling dark and moody. Her excellent books, including "Thicker Than Water," tend to deal mainly with familial relationships that are anything but picture-perfect. I would not recommned her work if you're just looking to kill time with a light-hearted read, but, if you want something that will haunt you, and maybe even make you think a little, pick her stuff up. She's worth it.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent debut novel, March 29, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Thicker Than Water (Hardcover)

Now that "The Kiss" is steaming up readers, and making Kathryn Harrison a much better-known name in book circles, readers should be drawn to her first novel. The story is about a young woman's need for love from a mother who can't show it, and her detachment from a father who "loves" her too much. I read this book and wondered if the details were autobiographical: there was a resonance to the narrative that suggested a deep truth being revealed and hidden at once.
The writing is superb, penetrating and haunting, the kind of book you cannot get out of your mind when you are not reading it. Isabel, the young woman whose story is being told, displays an almost Joycean detachment from the events happening to her, and we see them whirling about her narrative perspective, clear and yet somehow dizzying. I would recommend that the effort to obtain this book, even used, will reward the reader with an impeccably drawn portrait of the artist as a young woman.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Disturbing..., May 4, 2000

By 

Jessica Neuman Beck (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thicker Than Water (Paperback)

The first book I read by Kathryn Harrison was 'Exposure', which I loved. I picked up 'Thicker Than Water' expecting to love it, too. I ended up giving it to a friend of mine - my initial reaction after finishing it was that I couldn't deal with having it on my bookshelf.

After a couple of years (and after 'The Kiss' came out - which I read and, oddly enough, loved) I picked up 'Thicker Than Water' again. It still disturbed me, but I think it disturbed me less knowing that it was based on something that had occurred. (Notice that I say 'based'...all the critics denouncing Harrison for writing an 'autobiographic account disguised as a first novel' are, in my humble opinion, full of it.) I think what bothered me in the first place was that someone could just make up such a thing...that someone could, with merely the power of their imagination, make it seem so real. Which Harrison does. She has a gift for bringing the reader inside her head.

The only reason I give it 4 stars as opposed to 5 is because, as I said, it disturbed me.

But sometimes it's good to be disturbed.