The Waterline

by Joseph Olshan

Death by water haunts Billy Kaplan. He was seven when Mark Rosen drowned, the last to see the two-year-old alive. Now, at 20, he still feels guilty. The Waterline charts the emotional journey which Billy and his parents undertake to arrive at a peaceful coexistence with their past.

"I've tried to imagine what it's like to drown. You thrash around, trying not to breathe, but you have to inhale sometime. Finally you just give up and your chest caves in with a choke that ruptures everything inside you. I used to put butterflies in closed jars with cotton soaked in alcohol. They skittered around until their wings froze and darkened with a stain of chemical death. I remember how your mother laid you on your stomach, water bleeding out of your clothes, how each time she pressed down on your back I was afraid she was killing you. But then your eyes fluttered open, looking far away at heaven."

Genres: Fiction

307 pages, Hardcover

First published August 31, 1989

About the author

Joseph Olshan is an award-winning American novelist. His first novel, Clara's Heart, won the Times/Jonathan Cape Young Writers' Competition and went on to be made into a feature film starring Whoopi Goldberg. He is the author of eight novels, the most recent of which, The Conversion, will be published in 2008.

In addition to his novels, he has written extensively for newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, The Times (London), The Guardian (London),The Independent (London), The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, the New York Observer, Harpers Bazaar, People magazine and Entertainment Weekly. During the 1990's he was a regular contributor of book reviews to the Wall Street Journal. For six years was a professor of Creative Writing at New York University where he taught both graduate and undergraduate courses.

Joseph Olshan's other novels include Nightswimmer and Vanitas, as well as The Waterline, A Warmer Season, The Sound of Heaven and In Clara's Hands, a sequel to his acclaimed first novel, Clara's Heart.

Joseph Olshan is published in the U.S. by Saint Martin's Press and Berkley Books; and in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury publishing and Arcadia Books. His work has been translated into sixteen languages.

Reviews

[parisimo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is hands down one of the best books I’ve ever read, I’m so happy i kept reading till the end.
you never really get the full story until very close to the end but it does keep your attention for sure.
ngl there was one page that was literally so ew i think its page 207.
It’s told from three perspectives and talks about the drowning of a child and how it affected everyone around them.

What i liked was the fact that the third pov is directed to Mark Rosen directly, also the fact that it misleads you on purpose sometimes is really effective towards the storytelling because once you get the whole story of what happened that night everything starts to make sense.

The timeline of the story from a really young age through adulthood gives you kind of a sense of completion however the ending does leave you feeling unsatisfied in a really painful way yet you still understand completely.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent enough book. I would probably was a little generous with three stars, as it is more like a 2.5. About a seven year old boy who witnesses the accidental drowning of a two-year old boy at the neighborhood pond, and the resulting fall-out in the neighborhood and within his own family. The book has three main sections devoted to the mom's, dad's, a little boy's points of view. Well-written, but I thought the dad's section kind of brought the book down a notch.

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has a very dramatic beginning about the drowning of a child, and how that event impacts the family, friends, and neighbors of those who knew him. The book was by an author I had never heard of, and thought it was an interesting read. I did not think the ending was as well written as the rest of the book, however.

[Isblue · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's not really a two, but I can't justify three stars either. The conclusion was sadly lacking - a conclusion. The three character pov detracted from the main thrust of the story. I kept waiting for the turning point at which I would like at least one of the characters, alas that never really happened. But I didn't hate the book, I just didn't like it or the characters all that much.

[Jasmin · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW - What a book. It was absolutely amazing and I am so glad I read it - even though it's a really sad book it was an amazing read.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

read this as a teenager, and really enjoyed it at the time.