The Weight of Water (Paperback)

~ (Author) "IT IS MY job to call out if I see a shape, a rocky ledge, an island..." (more)
Key Phrases: forward cabin, Smutty Nose, Louis Wagner, John Hontvedt (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A newspaper photographer, Jean, researches the lurid and sensational ax murder of two women in 1873 as an editorial tie-in with a brutal modern double murder. (Can you guess which one?) She discovers a cache of papers that appear to give an account of the murders by an eyewitness. The plot weaves between the narrative of the eyewitness and Jean's private struggle with jealousies and suspicions as her marriage teeters. A rich, textured novel. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

In 1873, two women living on the Isles of Shoals, a lonely, windswept group of islands off the coast of New Hampshire, were brutally murdered. A third woman survived, cowering in a sea cave until dawn. More than a century later, Jean, a magazine photographer working on a photoessay about the murders, returns to the Isles with her husband, Thomas, and their five-year-old daughter, Billie, aboard a boat skippered by her brother-in-law, Rich, who has brought along his girlfriend, Adaline. As Jean becomes immersed in the details of the 19th-century murders, Thomas and Adaline find themselves drawn together-with potentially ruinous consequences. Shreve (Where or When; Resistance) perfectly captures the ubiquitous dampness of life on a sailboat, deftly evoking the way in which the weather comes to dictate all actions for those at sea. With the skill of a master shipbuilder, Shreve carefully fits her two stories together, tacking back and forth between the increasingly twisted murder mystery and the escalating tensions unleashed by the threat of a dangerous shipboard romance. Written with assurance and grace, plangent with foreboding and a taut sense of inexorability, The Weight of Water is a powerfully compelling tale of passion, a provocative and disturbing meditation on the nature of love. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books (January 7, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316780375
• ISBN-13: 978-0316780377
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (208 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #51,453 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Two Lives, Two Tragedies, November 4, 2002

By	W. Carol "dog lover" - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

The prequel to "The Last Time They Met," this is by far the better book. It provides a great deal of insight into the character of Thomas, the melancholy and ultimately doomed hero of the latter. And it also poses, I believe, an interesting question: Is tragedy predestined?

It certainly seems so in the two intertwined stories told in this book. The first, based on dual murders that actually took place in the 1800s, is the story of a Norwegian woman who is transplanted to a desolate and uninhabited New England island by her fisherman husband, there to live for many years with little or no human companionship under the harshest of circumstances. Her life is so rigid, so devoid of any tenderness or care, so barren (the fact that she cannot conceive a child is a metaphor for her entire existence) that her ultimate tragedy seems inevitable.

The second story is that of Thomas, a poet whose entire ouvre is limited to one collection of brilliant poems, an outpouring of grief and emotion about his first love, tragically killed in a car accident. Married to a photojournalist, Jean, Thomas seems half a person--desperately trying to regain his art, but in his way as barren as Maren, the lonely Norwegian wife. His only real joy is his and Jean's precocious and adorable 5-year-old daughter, Billie, whose mere existence has kept her parents in their difficult marriage. As Thomas and Billie accompany Jean on a photo assignment that will document the historic facts of the murders that changed a small group of Norwegian immigrants forever, Thomas seems to be unraveling. Situated with the others on a schooner piloted by his brother, Rich, Thomas seems to be a cypher, only alive in brief spurts punctuated by interactions with Billie and Rich's flirtatious girlfriend.

The steady unraveling of Thomas's sanity (and thus his marriage), juxtaposed against the story of Maren's own unraveling, makes for a heavy reading experience. And yet the book is so well written, and so insightful, that it moves along very quickly toward its inevitable and tragic ending.

Highly recommended, especially when paired with "The Last Time They Met," which should be read second, although I inadvertently reversed the order.

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Our Reading Club's First Book Selection, November 26, 1999

By	L. Forman "Book Lover" (Weymouth, MA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Having just created a Reading Club with 14 women of diverse backgrounds, ages, and Ethnicity, this book proved to be an excellent choice. Chosen predominantly because of the author's prior work and recommendations from this site, it yielded an invigorating read by sweeping the reader into two different stories set within one novel. Although at times I found the constant transitioning from the current day story to the SmuttyNose Murder story disruptive, I soon realized there was a reason for this style of writing and that perhaps Shreve was trying to lead the reader to some story parallel's. I was quite surprised that so much of the novel involved the actual historical story of the SmuttyNose Murders. I enjoyed this immensely as it kept the reader questioning the outcome of the investigation even centuries later. This book had much discussion material and I would recommend it for a group if interesting and lively discussion is what you are seeking. I look forward to reading more of her works.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Quick and Easy Read!, July 18, 2000

By	"bunnygirl-12" (Florida United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Weight of Water (Hardcover)

This was a very enjoyable book. I read it in about two days. The plot was pretty suspenseful, and the way it was written really hooks you in and makes you want to keep on reading! I liked the historical references and murder-mystery plot, and I found the fictional parts of the novel to be interesting as well. I find the author to be a very good writer and look forward to reading more books by Anita Shreve. If I could change one thing about the book, it would be to make the transition between the fictional character Jean's thoughts and the historical character Maren's tale a bit more seamless. At times the switchover was very choppy and abrupt, without even a change of paragraph. Of course, perhaps the author wrote it this way because she was trying to show how intertwined and tangled-up Jean was becoming in Maren's tale, and how Jean couldn't separate her own emotional angst from the historical character's due to the fact that she identified so closely with her. This book was about love, jealousy, choices, and betrayal (but not in the way that you'd think!). I believe many women would enjoy this book and I recommend it to all.