The Wet Collection

by Joni Tevis

Joni Tevis’s concern is with the precise relationship of components in the world: how one element in an environment interacts with others. How does the antique taxidermy in a natural science museum relate to the living birds outside the window? How do the opals found by campers, stored in mineral oil to conserve the water trapped inside, relate to the water table? “My practice is observation. How do relationships illuminate?” Using such models as Joseph Cornell’s box constructions, crazy quilts, and specimen displays, Tevis places fragments in relationship to each other in order to puzzle out lost histories, particularly those of women. Throughout The Wet Collection, the narrator navigates the peril and excitement of an outward journey complicated by an inward longing for home.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Science, Memoir

192 pages, Hardcover

First published June 14, 2007

About the author

Joni Tevis is from Easley, South Carolina, and is currently finishing a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston. Tevis has published in Isotope, Dislocate, AGNI online, Texas Review, High Plains Literary Review, Pleiades, Rain Taxi, and the New Review of Literature, among others. The Wet Collection (Milkweed Editions, 2007) is her first book.

Her writing has appeared in Orion, Oxford American, Shenandoah, Conjunctions, AGNI, The Bellingham Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Barrelhouse, and elsewhere. In 2006, she was awarded a Minnesota State Arts Board Grant. She lives in Greenville, South Carolina, and teaches literature and creative writing at Furman University. She is at work on a new book of nonfiction about ghost towns, tourist traps, and atomic dread.

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are not essays exactly, but not short stories either. I think I would call them imagined non-fictions. Tevis has worked as a park ranger, selling cemetery plots, and as a factory worker. She brings her experiences into these pieces. If I read that kind of summary on a book blurb, I would expect this to read more like the "journalist needs a paycheck so her publisher pays for her to have an adventure" type of book that I hate. That isn't what this is at all. These are heartfelt, connected to memory and family more than just the experience itself, and the emotion runs deep.

My favorite pieces in this collection are Building a Funeral, The Rain Follows the Plow, and I Keep a Jar of Clay Beside My Bed.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

The books we read for book club are always high-caliber, so aside from not knowing what to expect from a book such as this, I had the highest of expectations. It suffices to say, then, that The Wet Collection more than exceeded my expectations. Infused with rich language, personal stories, family stories, histories real and imagined, Biblical references, Southern references, historical and natural references - this collection of essays covers a large portion of my favorite things. How could I not love an author who mentions Shipley Donuts and Avery Island and countless other things that make me miss my home? Building a Funeral and The Rain Follows the Plow, the two longest selections, were my favorites. The first, because it described a place I am very familiar with, and the second, because it described a place I have only been to once but which has left such an indelible mark on me that her words make me ache to return. I could drink these words in again and again.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you, Colleen, for lending me this book (and being so patient as I read it at the last possible minute before returning it to you). Colleen read this book for the Short Forms class this past spring semester, a class I wish I could have taken, but my non-fiction seminar met in the same time slot, and I wanted to work with this particular professor.

This book is lovely--writing in ways I admire. I love the ways in which the book crosses genres--some pieces feel like a string of prose poems, other essays take imaginative leaps and create the world of the past, some are simply pieces recounting personal experiences. Rich with the kind of specific detail I love, rich with the natural world I adore being in, this book felt good to read, made me want to write myself, which is the best kind of compliment I can give to a book.

I look forward to seeing what Tevis does next.

[Craig Reinbold · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://essaydaily.blogspot.com/2011/1...

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found several of the essays in this book moving and sacred.

[Brad Erickson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice little discovery of essays and non-fiction. She grew up in Easley.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book came so highly recommended to me that it would have had to have been magical to satisfy my expectations. It wasn't (so often true of books by Milkweed--they are adjacent to great, but not great). It was very good in many places, and mediocre in equally many others. I was even bored occasionally. But it was different enough from the standard that I'm giving it 4 stars for the high points.

[Xilks · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was also assigned for a class. Read quite a few select passages. I'd say at least half the book. Some time I'd like to come back and read it with more time and patience to get a better feel and understanding rather than being rushed though. I didn't really care for all of the Christian undertone comments. Perhaps because I'm not strongly religious and I don't feel like I was getting the full meaning of the book. Either way, it was an interesting read.

[Melissa Matthewson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lyrical essays and short prose pieces with exquisite language and syntax. A rich collection of nonfiction rooted in the natural world. Beautiful imagined histories as well. There were times I got lost in the language and couldn't find my way out. The first half of the book is very good. Interesting structures for her essays. The collection is loosely linked.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed most of the essays in this book, although there were a few that didn't quite hold my attention. Still, I think it was full of interesting pieces, and displayed, for me, another way of looking at the world.

[Sarah Key · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. The Wet Collection is one of the best works of creative non-fiction that I have led all year. I loved its meditative quality and style. I can certainly see myself using some of these essays with students in the future.

[Brienna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of essays varies quite widely in style and form--some essays are in short sections, some are autobiographical. Tevis has an excellent command of language, and has had a crazily wide array of jobs.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Going home is traveling in time to a life I once had; it should be impossible, wrought by spell casting if at all, to visit these places I see in dreams."

Good stuff.

[Marcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is a bit uneven -- in some cases a little too oblique -- but the good stuff is really good. I envy Tevis her sense memory and descriptive eloquence.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary collection of essays by a gifted writer.