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The Waters & The Wild
A debut novel about a psychoanalyst haunted by a past crime and a past lover--a story that examines what it means to love, to betray, and to forgive.
Daniel Abend is a psychoanalyst and single parent living in New York City, with a successful practice and a comfortable life: an apartment on the Upper West Side, a beautiful teenage daughter, and an untroubled daily routine. When one of his young patients commits suicide, it is a tragedy, but one easily explained by her depression and drug addiction.
But shortly after, Daniel receives an ominous note that makes him question the patient's death. A few days later, his daughter abruptly disappears. A series of letters from an unknown sender ensnares Daniel in an increasingly desperate search for his daughter and for the truth--a search that stretches back decades, to when he was a young man living in Paris, falling in love with a woman who would upend his life. With lyrical prose and masterful plotting, The Waters & The Wild is a sophisticated and surprising literary mystery about passion, betrayal, and redemption.
Daniel Abend is a psychoanalyst and single parent living in New York City, with a successful practice and a comfortable life: an apartment on the Upper West Side, a beautiful teenage daughter, and an untroubled daily routine. When one of his young patients commits suicide, it is a tragedy, but one easily explained by her depression and drug addiction.
But shortly after, Daniel receives an ominous note that makes him question the patient's death. A few days later, his daughter abruptly disappears. A series of letters from an unknown sender ensnares Daniel in an increasingly desperate search for his daughter and for the truth--a search that stretches back decades, to when he was a young man living in Paris, falling in love with a woman who would upend his life. With lyrical prose and masterful plotting, The Waters & The Wild is a sophisticated and surprising literary mystery about passion, betrayal, and redemption.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published April 3, 2018
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July 28, 2022
Come away, O human child!After a young patient of his commits suicide, New York psychiatrist, and single dad, Daniel Abend begins receiving ominous letters and images from a mysterious correspondent. They include parts of a famous poem by William Butler Yates. When, soon after, his teenaged daughter goes missing, Abend is forced to face up to his past and a large secret. He must return to France, the spring from which this torrent of dread had sprung, and try his best to save his daughter’s life.
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
- W. B. Yeats
The structure of the novel is a frame, with a smaller, resonant tale surrounding the primary narrative. We meet Reverend Nelson Spurlock, cleric at the Manhattan church where the late patient’s funeral had been held. Abend had had a hand in the young woman’s final arrangements, and thought highly of Spurlock. Several years after that funeral, a young woman asks Spurlock if her recently deceased father had sent him anything for her. Huh? What? Who? Spurlock is befuddled and sends her away, but soon thereafter a package arrives, a considerable document, book length, by the late doctor. It is Abend’s story that is primary. Spurlock pops up from time to time, echoing or enhancing notions brought up in Abend’s tome. Spurlock has issues. Abend has crises.
DeSales Harrison - image from Oberlin
The love of Abend’s life was Miriam, a bright, artistic, spiritual, magical, hedonistic dynamo of a human being he met while working in Paris many years ago, an affaire du coeur, the love of a lifetime. He heard her angelic voice singing in a choir and it called to him. But there were, of course, complications. She had some other commitments and secrets that might have made their relationship problematic. Clementine, Abend’s daughter, had always been curious about her mother, a history Daniel has dutifully kept from her all these years. Her curiosity may have led her a bridge too far.
The poem that everything centers around is William Butler Yeats’ Stolen Child. I was introduced to it some years back, not in the original form, but through the musical genius of Loreena McKennitt. The tune and remarkable voice that she attached to the poem has fused such that I cannot see the words without summoning the sound. I heartily recommend listening to her musical interpretation of the poem before, during, and after reading. It is celestial. I am including a link in EXTRA STUFF to the entire poem, and to a few versions of the McKennitt song, so you can hear for yourselves. The poem’s centrality here raises the intriguing question of just who the child in question might be, Miriam, Clementine, Daniel, Jessica, or someone else who is in danger of being drawn in to something otherworldly.
Harrison has put own worlds into the book. He is an Associate Prof at Oberlin, Modern Poetry. It very much informs the novel. Not just Yeats’s bit, but a George Herbert poem, Love, that raises a question of those who feel they do not deserve any. Maybe some can only tolerate love if there is a ready exit, a return ticket to elsewhere in hand. While he also studied psychoanalysis in New York, it is not known whether he ever practiced. Still, this lends a bit of weight to his portrayal of a psychiatrist. But that depends, of course, on how you feel about it. He is a parent of four, so can bring in his personal daddy experience, and he spends time each year in one of the primary locations of the story, Nevers, France. There was no mention of lost boys. A certain college in Ohio comes in for a mention, as well.
Pont de Loire - in Nevers – image by Grégory Girard – used with permission
The events of the novel occur in three timelines, Spurlock’s framing present, Abend’s present, approximately three years earlier, and Abend with and after Miriam in France, about twenty years before that. Spurlock’s sections are always introduced overtly. There is no difficulty with keeping track of when you are in the narrative.
There are motifs aplenty in this novel, as one might expect from a teacher of poetry. Primary among these is the waters of the title, from a stained glass of Noah in the nave (which means ship) of a church, to the sprinkling of aqueous imagery throughout the book. (Overwhelmed in the flood of death, the waters rising up to our necks, for example, or How queer, the tendency of our days to flatten into a sameness, as water finds its level, or as if silence had been conquered to a liquid state) There are plenty more, but you get the idea. Miriam met her end in a river and Jessica in a bathtub. With plenty more encounters with streams and rivers, we are assured that the title is quite appropriate to the tale. Guilt comes in for a lot of consideration. Abend is weighed down by that secret, of course. And when he first spots Miriam she is singing Miserere, by Allegri, a choral piece about guilt (Behold, I was shapen in wickedness: And in sin hath my mother conceived me) The full text is not in the book. Abend feels guilt over the loss of his patient, Jessica, even though her death was clearly not his fault. Secrets are legion here, and what gives the novel its motive force. Spurlock and Abend share some common professional ground in being hosts for tales that they are required to keep secret. Abend keeps some serious intel from his daughter, as Miriam had kept some serious intel from Daniel. Spurlock’s smaller secrets add to the larger mass of the framed story. That should get you started if you like to track these things.
The Waters and the Wild is a beautifully written, lyrical, insightful, literary novel, not surprising given the CV of the guy who wrote it. The use of language is as beautiful as you would expect, and its intelligent and sensitive consideration of larger subjects raises it above the crowd. I very much appreciated the skill with which Harrison ended many chapters with hooks that would be the envy of any deep-sea fisherman. But that does not mean I did not find a bit of green floating matter on the surface. We are not told about some crucial actors in the story until quite far along, which seemed a bit of a cheat. When one character finds two others romantically entwined in a public place, it seemed a bit too convenient. Daniel can get tedious with his sometimes excessive and unproductive navel-gazing. Would someone really write a confessional document that long to give to a third party for passing along to the real recipient? And one can certainly argue that Abend’s guilt and where it leads, is not merited.
Neverstheless DeSales Harrison’s first novel is an engaging, stimulating, thought-provoking, and fun read. Although Abend can be annoying at times, the parent-in-danger-of-losing-a-child setup keeps us very interested in how things will turn out for him. Trying to figure out who his dark mystery correspondent might be is a very interest-sustaining element. You are in for a wild ride through the maelstrom of Harrison’s novel. You might want to pack a plastic poncho.
Review first posted – 5/18/18
Publication date – 4/3/18
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Harrison’s Twitter page. I did not find any other personal social media sites.
Here are several versions of Loreena McKennitt performing Stolen Child
-----Live performance
-----Also live, but a much more substantial backup – but video and sound quality are not great
-----Also live, but a much more substantial backup – better video and but with subtitles
-----McKennitt’s original studio recording with lyrics
Poems
-----Stolen Child by William Butler Yeats
-----Love (III) by George Herbert
-----Miserere, which is actually Psalm 51, in Latin if that’s your res, and English for the rest of us.
June 28, 2018
3.5 STARS
This was a beautifully written novel containing equal parts emotion and suspense, and I can definitely see readers who enjoy literary fiction on the darker side gobbling this up. If you're in the mood for a slow burn, this is truly a breathtaking, poetic story. While I did find myself struggling through a few passages, mainly due to that slow, SLOW burn, overall this was a truly positive reading experience. Told in a unique format, The Waters & The Wild was a tale exuding themes of lust, love, betrayal, and forgiveness.
Review copy furnished via NetGalley.
This was a beautifully written novel containing equal parts emotion and suspense, and I can definitely see readers who enjoy literary fiction on the darker side gobbling this up. If you're in the mood for a slow burn, this is truly a breathtaking, poetic story. While I did find myself struggling through a few passages, mainly due to that slow, SLOW burn, overall this was a truly positive reading experience. Told in a unique format, The Waters & The Wild was a tale exuding themes of lust, love, betrayal, and forgiveness.
Review copy furnished via NetGalley.
February 17, 2018
Daniel Abend, psychoanalyst, wanted to rewind his experiences and travel down a different path to the future. As a successful New York City therapist, he was encouraged by the apparent breakthrough of patient Jessica Burke. After years of therapy, she was now reinstated at college and had repaired strained family relationships. A few days before her death, by suicide, she sent Daniel her favorite poem by Yeats. The doctor-patient bond obligated Daniel to maintain therapist-patient confidentiality. Rector Nelson Spurlock delivered the eulogy at Jessica Burke's funeral, an impressive eulogy according to Daniel.
Three years later, Daniel's daughter, Clementine arrived at Spurlock's parish stating that her deceased father stipulated, in his will, that all correspondence relating to his estate be sent to her, c/o Reverend Nelson Spurlock, Church of the Incarnation in New York City. No mailings had arrived. Parish records showed no parishioner named Abend. Father Spurlock was puzzled by his discovery of Abend's letter of confession stating his sin and/or guilt. Spurlock felt discomforted and bogged down by the weight of this document. Who was this Daniel Abend and why had the rector found this confessional missive?
"The Waters & The Wild" is a psychological, literary thriller. Daniel Abend received mysterious mail after Jessica Burke died. Father Spurlock received mailings slated for Clementine Abend. The premise of this tome was excellent, the delivery, not so much. It was challenging, at times, to determine the speaker of various ruminations. That said, other parts of the book were positively riveting containing unexpected twists and turns. Uneven at times, "The Waters & The Wild" is a good read from debut author DeSales Harrison.
Thank you Random House Publishing Group-Random House and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "The Waters & The Wild".
Three years later, Daniel's daughter, Clementine arrived at Spurlock's parish stating that her deceased father stipulated, in his will, that all correspondence relating to his estate be sent to her, c/o Reverend Nelson Spurlock, Church of the Incarnation in New York City. No mailings had arrived. Parish records showed no parishioner named Abend. Father Spurlock was puzzled by his discovery of Abend's letter of confession stating his sin and/or guilt. Spurlock felt discomforted and bogged down by the weight of this document. Who was this Daniel Abend and why had the rector found this confessional missive?
"The Waters & The Wild" is a psychological, literary thriller. Daniel Abend received mysterious mail after Jessica Burke died. Father Spurlock received mailings slated for Clementine Abend. The premise of this tome was excellent, the delivery, not so much. It was challenging, at times, to determine the speaker of various ruminations. That said, other parts of the book were positively riveting containing unexpected twists and turns. Uneven at times, "The Waters & The Wild" is a good read from debut author DeSales Harrison.
Thank you Random House Publishing Group-Random House and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "The Waters & The Wild".
February 22, 2018
The unburdening of a soul......
The stone walls of the Church of the Incarnation give sanctuary to those seeking comfort and a harbor from the outside world. Rector Nelson Spurlock walks among the crowded cots of the lightly blanketed. New York City seems to gather up the unwanted deemed sadly undesirable by society.
A young woman, Clementine Abend, whispers to Spurlock as she seeks him out in this darkened room. She tells Spurlock that her father, Daniel Abend, has sent a package to the rector. Spurlock states that he knows of no package nor of anyone by the name of Daniel Abend. He takes down her information and continues to move through the room. Spurlock, unknowingly, will become a key player in this story and his impact will reverberate throughout the chapters.
DeSales Harrison presents a very multi-layered, intensely written read that showcases the deep humanity in his selected characters. The story reverts back in time as Daniel Abend, a New York City psychoanalyst, becomes our focus. The above-mentioned package contains the steppingstones of his prior life in Paris. It is a father's dialogue intended to peel back the darkened petals of his life. Daniel slowly reveals chipped nuggets of stone that eventually weigh heavy in the pocket of his ill-fated relationship with Miriam, Clementine's mother. "For the world's more full of weeping than you can undertand."
Don't be misled that this is a mystery/thriller. It is far more than that. There will be questionable circumstances that weave back and forth throughout the storyline with answers that don't bud-out until the conclusion. Be patient, dear reader, be patient.
Perhaps that is why this will not draw interest from all readers. Harrison's writing style contains densely inscribed passages that carve their way into your heart if you allow it to be. His descriptors of grief at the funeral of one of his patient's had my eyes brimming with tears. "Some griefs outstripped all consolation." His words are lush and yet contain a simple beauty to be embraced and savored. Harrison implements lines from a Yeats' poem that slowly trickles clues. Stick with this talented author. Let it be enough......
I received a copy of The Waters & The Wild through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Random House and to DeSales Harrison for the opportunity.
The stone walls of the Church of the Incarnation give sanctuary to those seeking comfort and a harbor from the outside world. Rector Nelson Spurlock walks among the crowded cots of the lightly blanketed. New York City seems to gather up the unwanted deemed sadly undesirable by society.
A young woman, Clementine Abend, whispers to Spurlock as she seeks him out in this darkened room. She tells Spurlock that her father, Daniel Abend, has sent a package to the rector. Spurlock states that he knows of no package nor of anyone by the name of Daniel Abend. He takes down her information and continues to move through the room. Spurlock, unknowingly, will become a key player in this story and his impact will reverberate throughout the chapters.
DeSales Harrison presents a very multi-layered, intensely written read that showcases the deep humanity in his selected characters. The story reverts back in time as Daniel Abend, a New York City psychoanalyst, becomes our focus. The above-mentioned package contains the steppingstones of his prior life in Paris. It is a father's dialogue intended to peel back the darkened petals of his life. Daniel slowly reveals chipped nuggets of stone that eventually weigh heavy in the pocket of his ill-fated relationship with Miriam, Clementine's mother. "For the world's more full of weeping than you can undertand."
Don't be misled that this is a mystery/thriller. It is far more than that. There will be questionable circumstances that weave back and forth throughout the storyline with answers that don't bud-out until the conclusion. Be patient, dear reader, be patient.
Perhaps that is why this will not draw interest from all readers. Harrison's writing style contains densely inscribed passages that carve their way into your heart if you allow it to be. His descriptors of grief at the funeral of one of his patient's had my eyes brimming with tears. "Some griefs outstripped all consolation." His words are lush and yet contain a simple beauty to be embraced and savored. Harrison implements lines from a Yeats' poem that slowly trickles clues. Stick with this talented author. Let it be enough......
I received a copy of The Waters & The Wild through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Random House and to DeSales Harrison for the opportunity.
December 9, 2017
I read this mainly because the author is a professor of poetry at Oberlin College. It’s a debut literary thriller and is eerily compelling. A psychiatrist, Dr. Abend begins receiving mysterious mail after the death of one of his patients. After Abend’s death, a priest receives Abend’s confessional missive. You read along with the priest as Abend tells his tale. At first, I wasn’t quite sure what make of this but I carried on and the story drew me in. There are unexpected twists and turns but the ending is contrived and borders on cheesy. This was disappointing because I had high hopes.
April 3, 2018
The Waters & The Wild opens when a young lady, Clementine Abend, visits the church and says that she believes that her father sent a package there that she needs to retrieve. Rector Nelson Spurlock turns he away not knowing of any such packages but a few weeks later it arrives in the mail.
The story then takes the reader back in time to a psychoanalyst, Daniel Abend and begins to tell his story that the package has led to. Daniel was married with a daughter and living in New York City where he practiced. One of his patients he had been close to, Jessica Burke, dies and the story follows from there.
The Waters & The Wild is another case for me of being the wrong reader for his particular mystery read. What some that enjoy this style of writing are sure to say is that it’s beautifully written and well done but for me beautifully written tends to translate into overly wordy and descriptive which in turn slows down the pace and dare I say I get a tad bored waiting for things to happen.
If you enjoy a really slow burning mystery with writing that can almost at times feel poetic then I’m sure this would be for you, however it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I had hoped to that I would fall in love with a twist or turn or an amazing conclusion but nothing really grabbed me along the way and I never developed much of a connection to the characters to rate any higher than 2.5 stars.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
For more reviews please visit https://carriesbookreviews.com/
The story then takes the reader back in time to a psychoanalyst, Daniel Abend and begins to tell his story that the package has led to. Daniel was married with a daughter and living in New York City where he practiced. One of his patients he had been close to, Jessica Burke, dies and the story follows from there.
The Waters & The Wild is another case for me of being the wrong reader for his particular mystery read. What some that enjoy this style of writing are sure to say is that it’s beautifully written and well done but for me beautifully written tends to translate into overly wordy and descriptive which in turn slows down the pace and dare I say I get a tad bored waiting for things to happen.
If you enjoy a really slow burning mystery with writing that can almost at times feel poetic then I’m sure this would be for you, however it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I had hoped to that I would fall in love with a twist or turn or an amazing conclusion but nothing really grabbed me along the way and I never developed much of a connection to the characters to rate any higher than 2.5 stars.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
For more reviews please visit https://carriesbookreviews.com/
April 3, 2018
I was attracted to this novel at first glance due to the beautiful cover. Well... I feel like that was about all that I enjoyed of this novel. This was a serious SLOW burn... wow. I think I skimmed more then half of this book.
Desales Harrison has a unique format of telling this story but I was very confused. I had a very hard time with the delivery on this one and could not keep up with the storyline.
The writing is truly beautiful but this one unfortunately was just not for me.
2 stars...
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for the arc.
Publication date: 4/3/18
Published to GR: 4/2/18.
Desales Harrison has a unique format of telling this story but I was very confused. I had a very hard time with the delivery on this one and could not keep up with the storyline.
The writing is truly beautiful but this one unfortunately was just not for me.
2 stars...
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for the arc.
Publication date: 4/3/18
Published to GR: 4/2/18.
April 3, 2018
I can now say I have read a literary thriller, but I can also say it just wasn't for me in the end. I was very interested in the lies and truths that plagued the storyteller, but the detail put into The Waters & The Wild left me feeling overwhelmed far too often. I skimmed, a lot more than I'd like to admit, and I really only stuck it out with this book to learn about what happened to the girl. The poetry aspect was phenomenal, it is clear that DeSales Harrison knows his poetry (I would hope so with his profession), but the constant circling back to it felt superfluous. The Waters & The Wild is an incredibly well written literary novel, maybe almost too well written in my opinion. It's filled with beautiful words and a storyline that actually could be very engaging, but ultimately is difficult to connect with.
April 25, 2018
A patient, a poem, a death, a post office box, and Father Spurlock. What do all of these have to do with Dr. Daniel Abend and his patient, Jessica Burke? Father Spurlock wants to know too.
Jessica had been a patient of Daniel’s, committed suicide, and with careful planning somehow had mailed letters to Daniel after her death and then three years later.
The puzzling thing was how that letter could have been mailed by Jessica when she had been dead for three years? Another thing that confused Daniel is that from these papers, he now knew that everything in the investigation was not revealed or seen by the police.
Daniel continued to receive letters about the death. These papers also brought back memories of what happened long ago in Paris.
When Daniel’s daughter, Clementine, disappears after she finds something about long-ago Paris, and then shows up at Father Spurlock’s telling him that her father mailed him something, Father Spurlock became more confused because he had received nothing.
Then all of a sudden letters and clues begin showing up, and Father Spurlock was extremely bothered by them because his only connection to Jessica Burke was when he did the service for her funeral, and he had no idea why he would be involved in whatever was going on. He is also bothered because Daniel was the one directing all this correspondence to him, telling Father Spurlock the story, and putting the responsibility on him.
THE WATERS & THE WILD has a gorgeous cover that rivals with the gothic, troubled, complicated story inside.
THE WATERS & THE WILD has beautiful writing - detailed and elegant. The author's style itself seems like a poem.
There are a lot of powerful and sometimes very deep, thought-provoking passages. I would call this book very scholarly in the writing aspect.
I enjoyed the book because of the writing and the SLOW march to the revelations. It did drag on a bit at times along with confusion, but all in all it turned out to have a very interesting, brilliant ending.
THE WATERS & THE WILD is a story of love, regret, revenge, and secrets.
If you like slow, steady, odd, and addictive, you will like this book. 4/5
This book was given to me free of charge and without compensation by the publisher in return for an honest review.
March 21, 2024
I don't do one star book reviews very often so this will be a "close reading" and as a result, it will not be short.
I didn't have high hopes for this book, because I know something of the authors personal life, as do a lot of people, and I wondered how much of his own life he would inject into the book, a very common pattern of writers, especially writers who have not published much.
I knew the sordid, comical, and Jerry Springer-like details of the way he had dumped his wife Isabel Gillies, and their two toddlers for another woman he had cheated with. The replacement wife, (Laura Jeanne Baudot) another instructor at Oberlin, and a forgettable submissive woman, appeared so weak willed, in all the news stories I looked at, that anyone could see her role was merely that of a servant/wife and that she would fit in well with a man like DeSales Harrison, given his innate narcissism and self-obsession.
I had also heard from some faculty at PSU, where I completed my undergraduate degrees, and my masters degree, that he was an affected and overrated "professor" of poetry and not as bright as he wanted people to believe. I was not sure if he and the other woman, Laura Jeanne Baudot, (who he dedicated this book to) were still together or not until I did a bit of research and found out that they are not and he has moved on with yet another instructor from Oberlin LOL... But the sordid and common way Harrison and Baudot came together was made unforgettable in Isabel Gillies best selling book, "Happens Every Day: An All-Too True Story," a book that people were interested in buying, by the way.
His second wife, of course, was the lovely and talented actress Isabel Gillies, as previously mentioned, who is now also a best selling author. She often starred in the TV series "Law and Order" and in films including the spectacular film, METROPOLITAN. She wrote the memoir about Harrison and how he abandoned her and their two babies, and overall it is a wonderful book. The one part I remember most is when Gillies father tells Harrison "There is something really wrong with you." Generally speaking the reader agrees, because one of the other things that comes out in Gillie's book is that Harrison abandoned his FIRST wife when she was six months pregnant with their child. Being a responsible adult and father, and caring for one's offspring is not something Harrison was particularly interested in doing.
I found this book in a Dollar Tree store, in Portland Oregon, only a year after its 2018 publication. I believe it was the spring of 2019, which is telling. The Dollar Tree is the "funeral home" where books that don't sell well in their home states or in other ways finally end up. The store had a lot of copies, as I recall, over 30, all stacked up on the top shelf, relatively untouched. As I walked by I heard a man say to the woman he was with, "What is it? Look any good?" to which she responded, "I think it's, like, a romance novel?" She then placed it back on the shelf.
I was intrigued by the book for that reason, her disinterest sparked my curiosity, and so I came to look at it. The book cover was pretty, designed in wild fantastical looking flowers in various shades of blue. It was then I noticed the name and remembered who the guy was.
The supercilious Heel who had dumped his wife and infant sons so he could bang a far less attractive woman, Laura Jeanne Baudot, and not have to deal with the responsibility of being a father, or the tediousness of dealing with the care and feeding of his infant sons.
I had enjoyed the way Isabel Gillies exposed Harrison for the shallow Deadbeat Dad and failure of a husband he had been, and as I stood looking at the flowery and ostentatious book cover, I was curious if the guy could actually write.
Because the book was only one dollar, (LOL) I bought it, brought it home to my house and stuck it on the shelf of one of my living room bookcases. I have a bit over 1,200 books in my home, 98 percent of which are hardcovers with nice dust jackets encased in plastic covers. As a writer, author, editor and publisher, (Oregon Greystone Press) I read A LOT and books are an extremely important part of my life. However, I simply didn't have time to read the Harrison novel, as I had many other books that were ahead of it, so it sat on that bookshelf, literally for years. Well, recently Portland had an ice storm and I found I had the time to read the book.
While I can't say the book is not well written, (I'm certain numerous editors helped polish the final product) the tone and character development ARE poor. It is not an enjoyable read, as it clings to a stilted, awkward and tediously romantic tone of grandiose suffering and loss.
The book is described thusly: "Daniel Abend lives a comfortable life as a successful psychotherapist on the Upper West Side of New York City. He is a single father raising a teenage daughter. When one of his patients commits suicide Daniel receives a note that has him start to ask questions about his patient’s death. Provided with a mysterious set of clues in the form of an old key, a haunting photograph and a veiled poem, Daniel is left struggling to solve the mystery before him. But suddenly, his daughter disappears. In a desperate search for his daughter and the truth, Daniel finds himself swept back to when he was a young man living in Paris. As each day passes, the trail gets colder and colder. Tortured by anonymous letters he receives, Daniel has to confront the past he left behind. But ultimately, Daniel knows the truth: in the end, we must all pay our debts."
Trudging through the flowery and "achingly romantic" prose was indeed tedious. These were not real characters, they were not genuine or believable, but merely fantasies. I was not impressed. As a result this is not going to be a gushing review.
The book reads as if it was written by a teen girl who writes romance novels. It tries too hard to beat over the head of the reader that the author is literate, profound, educated and brilliant and suffering for his craft.
It is not truly literary though, and reads with a contrived and as one other reviewer put it, a "cheesy" tone. In one of the blurbs on the back cover, the book is described as "achingly romantic" and a "Gothic-tinged thriller." Those are not the words you want in a blurb about a book you've written, trust me. The truth is, it simply reads like a romance novel, which are generally a dime a dozen. I didn't enjoy this book, as I don't consider romance novels to be real literature. Moreover, from what I have seen, the book has not been recognized by any national book awards of any kind. And that is perfectly understandable, considering it's school girl appeal.
The first paragraph reads..."Had you a nightscope, or the eye of a night bird staring down from the rafters of the church, you could make him out, the priest: supine, sunk in darkness, wide awake." It continues, "He had not seen her come in, the girl. How long ago had that been, Father Spurlock wondered, lying on the shelter cot, his gaze lost above him in the groined and vaulting shadows of the church."
"Groined." LOL...
"Groined" is an architectural term, meaning an area formed, "..by the intersection of two barrel vaults, usually with plain groins." Sadly, the common presumption of the meaning will prevail, particularly with the layman who reads a book like this and has no background in architecture.
On the next page the feverish language continues. "And at what moment had she changed, imperceptibly, and without moving, from anyone into someone, from someone into that girl? But no, she wasn't a girl anymore. Even from where he stood he could sense that. Eighteen? Possible, though she seemed older. Twenty? No, younger than that." (Nineteen I guess?) "Something in her bearing, in the unmoved abstraction of her gaze, had convinced him that she expected no one, that no one would arrive to join her. The volume of huge darkness pressed down on his chest like a book of stone."
Good heavens!
Another section reads: "She paused and cleared her throat, as though unused to the sound of her own voice..." and continues with these gems, "Now that she had turned toward him, her face seemed younger, her lips full and pursed around an uncertainty."
This kind of prose is what makes the book sound and read like a common, garden variety romance novel. There are numerous books, of rather inferior writing that have echoed the phrase: "She paused and cleared her throat, as though unused to the sound of her own voice." Over the last fifty years, I have found at least ten other books that have used that phrase, nearly word for word.
Then there is the convenient woman who "upends his life" the proverbial bad girl on which to lay blame. And of course the fact that the protagonist is a single father. Well, that's kind of wishful thinking, and perhaps a bit Freudian in a sense, as the author of this prose is not in the business of being a single father but rather in the business of abandoning the mother's of his children, WITH his children.
Which brings us to the question, do you separate the author from the details of their own life? Well, for the most part art in writing needs to be recognized for its own merits but when it is like this, well it's easier to disregard that noble aspiration and recognize the parallels, particularly when they are this glaring and autobiographical in the reversed roles presented.
This paragraph, page 230, contains some interesting writing, and I'll include it here: "Did I harbor the notion that something in me was capable of redemption, or if not of redemption than of reprieve? Did I imagine in time that I would be delivered, that messengers would be sent, disguised as the poor, the needy, the sick, even a wheezing dog on a string, to lead me out of the wilderness I'd wandered in since Miriam's death? Was it within such notions, Father, that my pride and self-aggrandizement concealed themselves?"
The issue of abandonment comes up repeatedly, and the betrayal that goes along with abandonment. It feels almost like what is called "Mental Masturbation." On page 272, the line reads; "Did he abandon you I asked, and she said everyone abandons everyone." Sound familiar? The title of Isabel Gillies book is "Happens every day..." This was what the other woman, Laura Baudot, told Isabel Gillies, during a conversation shortly after she and Harrison began their affair. That people abandon people "every day." This section is what I'm referring to when I say that writers and authors often cannot separate their own histories from the fiction that they write.
Invariably, they cannibalize their own lives.
The one person who can probably see past ALL the writerly maneuvering is Harrison's ex, Isabel Gillies, and perhaps she's read the book and seen all the ways Harrison injects various dynamics from their past life into the novel. I'm certain that he has. The fact that the book is about a man who is a psychoanalyst, and Harrison also wanted to become a psychoanalyst but did not, is another interesting parallel from Harrison's known history.
The end paragraph is another clue, and written in flowery and "achingly romantic" prose: "Were you there, had you taken as I had the form of a crow in the crown of a yew tree - a crow hunched and inkily unkempt, hoarse from its dark, disconsolate colloquy - you would remark how they walk without haste, side by side, down the cinder path toward the sunrise and the eastern gate; my daughter, Miriam Oppen, and her kind companion, his head inclined toward her to listen."
The ending is a "happy ending" and rather trite and as that one reviewer wrote, "cheesy" as well. There is a lot wrong with the book because it doesn't read like something that could ever happen. It reads like a fantasy and not a believable fantasy at that. There is little use of contractions, an indicator of modern language and so it has this stilted and awkward tone throughout, that does not embrace formalism so much as it embraces awkwardness.
There are other things that are revealing as well. On Harrison's vacant, abandoned Goodreads page, (with his 12 followers) there are 106 reviews, written over the past six years. Of those reviews, there are dozens and dozens that have identical formatting. In other words the paragraph breaks are identical, and the number of paragraphs similar. This indicates that spam accounts have been created and fake reviews written by people trying to make it seem as if the book is a best seller. This is a common trick some authors do, in order to seem more popular than they really are.
Many reviews are also by people who were given free copies to review, which can be done by Goodreads as a service. You pay between $400 and $1,000 to have Goodreads hunt down readers, with the promise of a print or eBook copy of the book to read in exchange for an "honest review."
Then there is the strange reality that there is a 2009 book with the same title, "The Waters & the Wild," based on a 2005 short story of the same name by the author Francesca Lia Block. Was Harrison unaware that there was a previous book with the exact same title? And why didn't he alter the title of his book to make it something different? It's what most experienced writers and authors would have done. There is just so much wrong with this book that I cannot recommend it. I realize this may sound like a harsh review but then... it happens every day.
Another interesting aspect is that it looks like DeSales Harrison is now with yet another woman, with whom he cheated, while married to Laura Jeanne Baudot. This new woman's name is Claire Solomon, yet another instructor at Oberlin College. There is a website with their photo, and the explanation written below the photo, "They became friends then and connected with one another through humor, especially about being professors at Oberlin. At the time, they were married to other people, only to later find themselves each in similar situations out of their relationships."
"Out of their relationships." Thats an interesting way to put serial cheating. LOL...
Harrison has steadily gone down hill in terms of the physical beauty of the women he ends up with. Isabel Gillies was and is indeed quite beautiful, Laura Jeanne Baudot was pretty, in a simple country girl sort of way, but his new woman Claire Solomon is neither beautiful nor pretty and can only be described as being a handsome woman, with her masculine, angular and decidedly unfeminine face.
I remember being in a chat room, around the time I read Isabel Gillies memoir and writing that men like DeSales Harrison do not change their colors, and generally always continue their special brand of repetition, repeatedly. I predicted that he would cheat again. Looks like he has. One has to wonder with whom he will cheat, when he dumps this other woman, Solomon. LOL.. but I'm sure her time will come, too.
PS. Now that I have read the book, I will donate it to the local Senior Center in my area. I'm sure an elderly lady will read it and fall in love with the "achingly romantic" tone of this rather predictable and tedious romance novel with it's searing and florid language and unlikely cast of characters.
It is also notable that Isabel Gillies is the best selling author of four extremely popular books and has been married almost 20 years to Peter Lattman, a successful editor at the New York Times.
Cheaters never prosper and the lives they leave behind often end up far better than their own.
I didn't have high hopes for this book, because I know something of the authors personal life, as do a lot of people, and I wondered how much of his own life he would inject into the book, a very common pattern of writers, especially writers who have not published much.
I knew the sordid, comical, and Jerry Springer-like details of the way he had dumped his wife Isabel Gillies, and their two toddlers for another woman he had cheated with. The replacement wife, (Laura Jeanne Baudot) another instructor at Oberlin, and a forgettable submissive woman, appeared so weak willed, in all the news stories I looked at, that anyone could see her role was merely that of a servant/wife and that she would fit in well with a man like DeSales Harrison, given his innate narcissism and self-obsession.
I had also heard from some faculty at PSU, where I completed my undergraduate degrees, and my masters degree, that he was an affected and overrated "professor" of poetry and not as bright as he wanted people to believe. I was not sure if he and the other woman, Laura Jeanne Baudot, (who he dedicated this book to) were still together or not until I did a bit of research and found out that they are not and he has moved on with yet another instructor from Oberlin LOL... But the sordid and common way Harrison and Baudot came together was made unforgettable in Isabel Gillies best selling book, "Happens Every Day: An All-Too True Story," a book that people were interested in buying, by the way.
His second wife, of course, was the lovely and talented actress Isabel Gillies, as previously mentioned, who is now also a best selling author. She often starred in the TV series "Law and Order" and in films including the spectacular film, METROPOLITAN. She wrote the memoir about Harrison and how he abandoned her and their two babies, and overall it is a wonderful book. The one part I remember most is when Gillies father tells Harrison "There is something really wrong with you." Generally speaking the reader agrees, because one of the other things that comes out in Gillie's book is that Harrison abandoned his FIRST wife when she was six months pregnant with their child. Being a responsible adult and father, and caring for one's offspring is not something Harrison was particularly interested in doing.
I found this book in a Dollar Tree store, in Portland Oregon, only a year after its 2018 publication. I believe it was the spring of 2019, which is telling. The Dollar Tree is the "funeral home" where books that don't sell well in their home states or in other ways finally end up. The store had a lot of copies, as I recall, over 30, all stacked up on the top shelf, relatively untouched. As I walked by I heard a man say to the woman he was with, "What is it? Look any good?" to which she responded, "I think it's, like, a romance novel?" She then placed it back on the shelf.
I was intrigued by the book for that reason, her disinterest sparked my curiosity, and so I came to look at it. The book cover was pretty, designed in wild fantastical looking flowers in various shades of blue. It was then I noticed the name and remembered who the guy was.
The supercilious Heel who had dumped his wife and infant sons so he could bang a far less attractive woman, Laura Jeanne Baudot, and not have to deal with the responsibility of being a father, or the tediousness of dealing with the care and feeding of his infant sons.
I had enjoyed the way Isabel Gillies exposed Harrison for the shallow Deadbeat Dad and failure of a husband he had been, and as I stood looking at the flowery and ostentatious book cover, I was curious if the guy could actually write.
Because the book was only one dollar, (LOL) I bought it, brought it home to my house and stuck it on the shelf of one of my living room bookcases. I have a bit over 1,200 books in my home, 98 percent of which are hardcovers with nice dust jackets encased in plastic covers. As a writer, author, editor and publisher, (Oregon Greystone Press) I read A LOT and books are an extremely important part of my life. However, I simply didn't have time to read the Harrison novel, as I had many other books that were ahead of it, so it sat on that bookshelf, literally for years. Well, recently Portland had an ice storm and I found I had the time to read the book.
While I can't say the book is not well written, (I'm certain numerous editors helped polish the final product) the tone and character development ARE poor. It is not an enjoyable read, as it clings to a stilted, awkward and tediously romantic tone of grandiose suffering and loss.
The book is described thusly: "Daniel Abend lives a comfortable life as a successful psychotherapist on the Upper West Side of New York City. He is a single father raising a teenage daughter. When one of his patients commits suicide Daniel receives a note that has him start to ask questions about his patient’s death. Provided with a mysterious set of clues in the form of an old key, a haunting photograph and a veiled poem, Daniel is left struggling to solve the mystery before him. But suddenly, his daughter disappears. In a desperate search for his daughter and the truth, Daniel finds himself swept back to when he was a young man living in Paris. As each day passes, the trail gets colder and colder. Tortured by anonymous letters he receives, Daniel has to confront the past he left behind. But ultimately, Daniel knows the truth: in the end, we must all pay our debts."
Trudging through the flowery and "achingly romantic" prose was indeed tedious. These were not real characters, they were not genuine or believable, but merely fantasies. I was not impressed. As a result this is not going to be a gushing review.
The book reads as if it was written by a teen girl who writes romance novels. It tries too hard to beat over the head of the reader that the author is literate, profound, educated and brilliant and suffering for his craft.
It is not truly literary though, and reads with a contrived and as one other reviewer put it, a "cheesy" tone. In one of the blurbs on the back cover, the book is described as "achingly romantic" and a "Gothic-tinged thriller." Those are not the words you want in a blurb about a book you've written, trust me. The truth is, it simply reads like a romance novel, which are generally a dime a dozen. I didn't enjoy this book, as I don't consider romance novels to be real literature. Moreover, from what I have seen, the book has not been recognized by any national book awards of any kind. And that is perfectly understandable, considering it's school girl appeal.
The first paragraph reads..."Had you a nightscope, or the eye of a night bird staring down from the rafters of the church, you could make him out, the priest: supine, sunk in darkness, wide awake." It continues, "He had not seen her come in, the girl. How long ago had that been, Father Spurlock wondered, lying on the shelter cot, his gaze lost above him in the groined and vaulting shadows of the church."
"Groined." LOL...
"Groined" is an architectural term, meaning an area formed, "..by the intersection of two barrel vaults, usually with plain groins." Sadly, the common presumption of the meaning will prevail, particularly with the layman who reads a book like this and has no background in architecture.
On the next page the feverish language continues. "And at what moment had she changed, imperceptibly, and without moving, from anyone into someone, from someone into that girl? But no, she wasn't a girl anymore. Even from where he stood he could sense that. Eighteen? Possible, though she seemed older. Twenty? No, younger than that." (Nineteen I guess?) "Something in her bearing, in the unmoved abstraction of her gaze, had convinced him that she expected no one, that no one would arrive to join her. The volume of huge darkness pressed down on his chest like a book of stone."
Good heavens!
Another section reads: "She paused and cleared her throat, as though unused to the sound of her own voice..." and continues with these gems, "Now that she had turned toward him, her face seemed younger, her lips full and pursed around an uncertainty."
This kind of prose is what makes the book sound and read like a common, garden variety romance novel. There are numerous books, of rather inferior writing that have echoed the phrase: "She paused and cleared her throat, as though unused to the sound of her own voice." Over the last fifty years, I have found at least ten other books that have used that phrase, nearly word for word.
Then there is the convenient woman who "upends his life" the proverbial bad girl on which to lay blame. And of course the fact that the protagonist is a single father. Well, that's kind of wishful thinking, and perhaps a bit Freudian in a sense, as the author of this prose is not in the business of being a single father but rather in the business of abandoning the mother's of his children, WITH his children.
Which brings us to the question, do you separate the author from the details of their own life? Well, for the most part art in writing needs to be recognized for its own merits but when it is like this, well it's easier to disregard that noble aspiration and recognize the parallels, particularly when they are this glaring and autobiographical in the reversed roles presented.
This paragraph, page 230, contains some interesting writing, and I'll include it here: "Did I harbor the notion that something in me was capable of redemption, or if not of redemption than of reprieve? Did I imagine in time that I would be delivered, that messengers would be sent, disguised as the poor, the needy, the sick, even a wheezing dog on a string, to lead me out of the wilderness I'd wandered in since Miriam's death? Was it within such notions, Father, that my pride and self-aggrandizement concealed themselves?"
The issue of abandonment comes up repeatedly, and the betrayal that goes along with abandonment. It feels almost like what is called "Mental Masturbation." On page 272, the line reads; "Did he abandon you I asked, and she said everyone abandons everyone." Sound familiar? The title of Isabel Gillies book is "Happens every day..." This was what the other woman, Laura Baudot, told Isabel Gillies, during a conversation shortly after she and Harrison began their affair. That people abandon people "every day." This section is what I'm referring to when I say that writers and authors often cannot separate their own histories from the fiction that they write.
Invariably, they cannibalize their own lives.
The one person who can probably see past ALL the writerly maneuvering is Harrison's ex, Isabel Gillies, and perhaps she's read the book and seen all the ways Harrison injects various dynamics from their past life into the novel. I'm certain that he has. The fact that the book is about a man who is a psychoanalyst, and Harrison also wanted to become a psychoanalyst but did not, is another interesting parallel from Harrison's known history.
The end paragraph is another clue, and written in flowery and "achingly romantic" prose: "Were you there, had you taken as I had the form of a crow in the crown of a yew tree - a crow hunched and inkily unkempt, hoarse from its dark, disconsolate colloquy - you would remark how they walk without haste, side by side, down the cinder path toward the sunrise and the eastern gate; my daughter, Miriam Oppen, and her kind companion, his head inclined toward her to listen."
The ending is a "happy ending" and rather trite and as that one reviewer wrote, "cheesy" as well. There is a lot wrong with the book because it doesn't read like something that could ever happen. It reads like a fantasy and not a believable fantasy at that. There is little use of contractions, an indicator of modern language and so it has this stilted and awkward tone throughout, that does not embrace formalism so much as it embraces awkwardness.
There are other things that are revealing as well. On Harrison's vacant, abandoned Goodreads page, (with his 12 followers) there are 106 reviews, written over the past six years. Of those reviews, there are dozens and dozens that have identical formatting. In other words the paragraph breaks are identical, and the number of paragraphs similar. This indicates that spam accounts have been created and fake reviews written by people trying to make it seem as if the book is a best seller. This is a common trick some authors do, in order to seem more popular than they really are.
Many reviews are also by people who were given free copies to review, which can be done by Goodreads as a service. You pay between $400 and $1,000 to have Goodreads hunt down readers, with the promise of a print or eBook copy of the book to read in exchange for an "honest review."
Then there is the strange reality that there is a 2009 book with the same title, "The Waters & the Wild," based on a 2005 short story of the same name by the author Francesca Lia Block. Was Harrison unaware that there was a previous book with the exact same title? And why didn't he alter the title of his book to make it something different? It's what most experienced writers and authors would have done. There is just so much wrong with this book that I cannot recommend it. I realize this may sound like a harsh review but then... it happens every day.
Another interesting aspect is that it looks like DeSales Harrison is now with yet another woman, with whom he cheated, while married to Laura Jeanne Baudot. This new woman's name is Claire Solomon, yet another instructor at Oberlin College. There is a website with their photo, and the explanation written below the photo, "They became friends then and connected with one another through humor, especially about being professors at Oberlin. At the time, they were married to other people, only to later find themselves each in similar situations out of their relationships."
"Out of their relationships." Thats an interesting way to put serial cheating. LOL...
Harrison has steadily gone down hill in terms of the physical beauty of the women he ends up with. Isabel Gillies was and is indeed quite beautiful, Laura Jeanne Baudot was pretty, in a simple country girl sort of way, but his new woman Claire Solomon is neither beautiful nor pretty and can only be described as being a handsome woman, with her masculine, angular and decidedly unfeminine face.
I remember being in a chat room, around the time I read Isabel Gillies memoir and writing that men like DeSales Harrison do not change their colors, and generally always continue their special brand of repetition, repeatedly. I predicted that he would cheat again. Looks like he has. One has to wonder with whom he will cheat, when he dumps this other woman, Solomon. LOL.. but I'm sure her time will come, too.
PS. Now that I have read the book, I will donate it to the local Senior Center in my area. I'm sure an elderly lady will read it and fall in love with the "achingly romantic" tone of this rather predictable and tedious romance novel with it's searing and florid language and unlikely cast of characters.
It is also notable that Isabel Gillies is the best selling author of four extremely popular books and has been married almost 20 years to Peter Lattman, a successful editor at the New York Times.
Cheaters never prosper and the lives they leave behind often end up far better than their own.
March 16, 2018
One of Daniel Abend’s therapy patients commits suicide. She was an addict and was depressed so he thought he understood what had happened. But when he starts to receive mysterious packages and letters, he starts to think there may have more to her death than he first thought. The letters and packages take a more sinister turn when they lead him to believe that his teenage daughter is in danger. Whomever is sending Daniel these notes seems to know a lot about his past, which causes Daniel to visit his past mistakes in life.
Writing the above blurb outlining the basic plot of this book makes it sound like an ordinary thriller. Yes, there’s plenty of suspense, but it’s so much more than that. It’s an extraordinary, multi-layered look at the life of a man whose sorrows and regrets run deep. The writing is so luscious, I couldn’t get enough of it. The author chose to tell the story through a confession written to a priest, which added another layer of intrigue. It’s a dark, tragic tale and one I’ll never forget. This is an intense literary work of art and completely took my breath away. Kudos to the author on his debut novel. If it doesn’t receive many awards, I’ll be very surprised.
Most highly recommended.
This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.
Writing the above blurb outlining the basic plot of this book makes it sound like an ordinary thriller. Yes, there’s plenty of suspense, but it’s so much more than that. It’s an extraordinary, multi-layered look at the life of a man whose sorrows and regrets run deep. The writing is so luscious, I couldn’t get enough of it. The author chose to tell the story through a confession written to a priest, which added another layer of intrigue. It’s a dark, tragic tale and one I’ll never forget. This is an intense literary work of art and completely took my breath away. Kudos to the author on his debut novel. If it doesn’t receive many awards, I’ll be very surprised.
Most highly recommended.
This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.
August 12, 2018
Holy pretentious twaddle, Batman. Could not finish. The profusion of ridiculously florid language made it impossible to follow the story when I had to hear a dozen metaphors about each feature or item described.
July 27, 2018
This is an atmospheric mystery with an extremely slow burn and a somewhat anticlimactic ending, with the action split between New York City and France. To really enjoy this, I think you have to be interested in psychoanalysis or poetry, the two dominant themes of the book. (The author is a professor of poetry who has studied psychoanalysis and spends his time in NYC and France; take from that what you will.) I loved the initial inclusion of Yeats's "The Stolen Child" and found the prose easy to sink into, but the best part of the book is definitely the beginning. The mystery draws out too long and becomes too convoluted, and I didn't buy the backstory for the protagonist and his wife. I did like . It gave the story a real Dumas flair.
Thank you to the publisher for sending me a review copy!
Thank you to the publisher for sending me a review copy!
March 31, 2020
Totul este un amestec derutant de idei filosofice, religioase și psihologice, expuse haotic și într-un mod aproape deloc accesibil. Un stil asemănător am găsit în Cartea secretelor, de Eugen Chirovici, dar acolo toate acestea erau combinate cu suspans și un mister care te ținea agățat. Aici doar m-am ținut eu cu dinții pentru că nu îmi place să renunț la cărți. În plus, dăm peste multe fraze în franceză care nu sunt traduse, iar ritmul este unul agonizant de lent. În afară de câteva citate nu mi-a plăcut nimic și sper că autorul este mai bun ca profesor decât ca scriitor. Recenzia aici: https://sandradeaconu.blogspot.com/?m=1.
《Weil spune că singurul lucru pe care îl posedă cu adevărat oricine este abilitatea de a spune ,,Eu'', nimic mai mult. Orice altceva credem că este al nostru - numele, trupurile, limbile, familiile, națiunile - toate acestea aparțin destinului, pentru a fi împrumutate și eliminate așa cum decide soarta.》
《Weil spune că singurul lucru pe care îl posedă cu adevărat oricine este abilitatea de a spune ,,Eu'', nimic mai mult. Orice altceva credem că este al nostru - numele, trupurile, limbile, familiile, națiunile - toate acestea aparțin destinului, pentru a fi împrumutate și eliminate așa cum decide soarta.》
April 11, 2018
This book is on the fence for me. The mystery / thriller plot line of the book was solid, and the characters were relatively well thought out and solid, but the writing style is too wordy and effusive for me. If you're a fan of Abraham Verghese or Michael Koryta, you'd very much enjoy this novel.
Thanks to NetGalley, DeSales Harrison, and Random House for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Thanks to NetGalley, DeSales Harrison, and Random House for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
February 26, 2018
via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
'We were all in over our heads, you said. Everything was too much, our lives were too much. Too many temptations, allurements, false starts, false promises. Too much pain. Too much grief. And there was nothing to be said about this: some griefs, you said, outstripped all consolation.
As for the explannations, we would never be satisfied.'
Daniel Abend is a successful psychoanalyst and single parent to a teenage girl. Life is wonderful, until it isn’t. His work with patient, Jessica Burke, was successful and returned her to her life and family, her future potential back on track with college. Then it falls apart when she dies. While sitting in the pews, waiting for Rector Nelson Spurlock to give the eulogy, Daniel thinks about the patients he has lost and struggles with the stunning shock that it seemed impossible that of them all, Jessica could be dead. When it is Daniel who is dead, his daughter seeks Spurlock out to inform him all missives from her father now belong to her. But the clergyman is rattled, with no idea who she is talking about, who Daniel is. So begins the story. The ‘confessional’ arrives after Daniel’s death and in it a mystery, the reader and Spurlock dissect everything that happened together. This is Daniel’s last confession, and he asks in his letter “will you hear it”?
Daniel passes his days in a sort of haze until his daughter, Clementine brings to his attention a strange envelope with a key inside. Led to a post office box, he discovers a poem assigned in a night class Jessica was taking. Now, with the poem sent before her death he knows it was no accident, her death was very much intended. It is a heavy weight to bear, this knowing. Then, through a photograph that horrifies with its mystery, the claws will pull him down. Spurlock is drawn into the story, though beyond giving a eulogy for the deceased Jessica, he never knew either she nor Daniel, but Abend was so moved by his words that he clung to them. Who is Abend? Does anyone truly know?
The picture serves to terrorize Daniel, like a threat to his own daughter, to all daughters of the world. Clementine knows so little about her own mother, just another lie he contains, until he can’t. His life seems to be a series of women begging, remember me… “with the past so much longer than the future.” Each woman gone and now Clementine too, or maybe missing, which? The slippery truth found its way to his daughter, and all because of his protective lies, he has nothing and deceptions even for good reason can’t be tolerated by the one betrayed. But what is the truth, just what lies has he invented?
It is fact he loved a woman named Miriam, that the way of her demise is more story, one Clementine had to tell herself, because what she believes of her mother is a safer fiction than the true horror story. Someone else knows though, the very person who could have had a hand in Jessica’s tragic end. Someone else is making sure Daniel ‘remembers’ his discarded past involving the tragedy of Miriam who is now morphing with Jessica’s strange final moments. This is a mystery, a quiet thriller but much more a beautiful literary tale. Daniel helps his patients cling to life long enough to see their way out of darkness, and yet what of his own? Is it possible to reinvent the past, change the story to a cleaner version? What of the sickness of the sinner?
When the reader reaches the rotten center, they’re not sure what to feel- maybe horrified and yet exhausted by the decisions and deceptions, much as Daniel must be. Heartsick, because nothing is worse than being abandoned by your child. Is anyone ever truly ours? What of abandoning yourself? It’s so hard to express why I felt so many conflicting emotions reading the story without ruining the mystery. All I could think is, “My God, what have you done?” Every character has meaning, even when we (like Clementine) are oblivious to their importance. That the dead are present, an ever watchful eye, that a reckoning is never quite how one imagines it to be. A tale we all take part in, because you can arrange a life, your own, someone else’s, with the precision of a God and your ‘creation/invention’ will turn on you, demand its pound of flesh. What of intentions, selfless vs selfish, does it make a difference? As if any sort of ‘arranging’ can be right, or wrong. The universe has an account of your every transgression, against others, or yourself. The dead rise, at their own will, if only through the tormented memories of those left behind to grieve.
The characters have their reasons for everything, how toxic our ‘reasoning’, how blindly we move through our lives and each others, infecting those we love most with our choices. I imagine every reader will feel different emotions, certainly it seems damnation would be fair, if you are moved to justice. Everyone is a mystery, or a tragedy about to happen. How is Spurlock, a godly man, to unravel such inhumanity? How did he find himself a key player in a story of deception and fatherly love? The writing about Daniel’s job as a ‘therapist’ is gorgeous and humbling. In chapter 29, he tells of his years in practice dealing with his patients ‘astonishing disclosures’ and how little, in the end, they ‘alter the fabric of the patients life.’ These happenings that rupture the veil of our ordered life somehow always spit us back out to where we were. Everything changes, and yet nothing. Our lack of awareness is usually suspect, because all too often on some level we did know. All of it stood out to me, because it is a strange effect when something rocks our world, it may reverberate but does it change the past? That can be applied to any big moment, good or bad, if you can even label the things in a life as such. The world and all it’s inhabitants hurtle towards the future, unchanged by our victories and miseries. Life moves on much the same.
I will be thinking about this for days. It starts off slowly, but by the novels conclusion I was gutted. There are heartbreaking moments, and brutality that is shocking. It’s hard not to hold Daniel accountable, and yet impossible not to find compassion too. Are we all so disfigured? Maybe.
Publication Date: April 3, 2018
Random House Publishing
'We were all in over our heads, you said. Everything was too much, our lives were too much. Too many temptations, allurements, false starts, false promises. Too much pain. Too much grief. And there was nothing to be said about this: some griefs, you said, outstripped all consolation.
As for the explannations, we would never be satisfied.'
Daniel Abend is a successful psychoanalyst and single parent to a teenage girl. Life is wonderful, until it isn’t. His work with patient, Jessica Burke, was successful and returned her to her life and family, her future potential back on track with college. Then it falls apart when she dies. While sitting in the pews, waiting for Rector Nelson Spurlock to give the eulogy, Daniel thinks about the patients he has lost and struggles with the stunning shock that it seemed impossible that of them all, Jessica could be dead. When it is Daniel who is dead, his daughter seeks Spurlock out to inform him all missives from her father now belong to her. But the clergyman is rattled, with no idea who she is talking about, who Daniel is. So begins the story. The ‘confessional’ arrives after Daniel’s death and in it a mystery, the reader and Spurlock dissect everything that happened together. This is Daniel’s last confession, and he asks in his letter “will you hear it”?
Daniel passes his days in a sort of haze until his daughter, Clementine brings to his attention a strange envelope with a key inside. Led to a post office box, he discovers a poem assigned in a night class Jessica was taking. Now, with the poem sent before her death he knows it was no accident, her death was very much intended. It is a heavy weight to bear, this knowing. Then, through a photograph that horrifies with its mystery, the claws will pull him down. Spurlock is drawn into the story, though beyond giving a eulogy for the deceased Jessica, he never knew either she nor Daniel, but Abend was so moved by his words that he clung to them. Who is Abend? Does anyone truly know?
The picture serves to terrorize Daniel, like a threat to his own daughter, to all daughters of the world. Clementine knows so little about her own mother, just another lie he contains, until he can’t. His life seems to be a series of women begging, remember me… “with the past so much longer than the future.” Each woman gone and now Clementine too, or maybe missing, which? The slippery truth found its way to his daughter, and all because of his protective lies, he has nothing and deceptions even for good reason can’t be tolerated by the one betrayed. But what is the truth, just what lies has he invented?
It is fact he loved a woman named Miriam, that the way of her demise is more story, one Clementine had to tell herself, because what she believes of her mother is a safer fiction than the true horror story. Someone else knows though, the very person who could have had a hand in Jessica’s tragic end. Someone else is making sure Daniel ‘remembers’ his discarded past involving the tragedy of Miriam who is now morphing with Jessica’s strange final moments. This is a mystery, a quiet thriller but much more a beautiful literary tale. Daniel helps his patients cling to life long enough to see their way out of darkness, and yet what of his own? Is it possible to reinvent the past, change the story to a cleaner version? What of the sickness of the sinner?
When the reader reaches the rotten center, they’re not sure what to feel- maybe horrified and yet exhausted by the decisions and deceptions, much as Daniel must be. Heartsick, because nothing is worse than being abandoned by your child. Is anyone ever truly ours? What of abandoning yourself? It’s so hard to express why I felt so many conflicting emotions reading the story without ruining the mystery. All I could think is, “My God, what have you done?” Every character has meaning, even when we (like Clementine) are oblivious to their importance. That the dead are present, an ever watchful eye, that a reckoning is never quite how one imagines it to be. A tale we all take part in, because you can arrange a life, your own, someone else’s, with the precision of a God and your ‘creation/invention’ will turn on you, demand its pound of flesh. What of intentions, selfless vs selfish, does it make a difference? As if any sort of ‘arranging’ can be right, or wrong. The universe has an account of your every transgression, against others, or yourself. The dead rise, at their own will, if only through the tormented memories of those left behind to grieve.
The characters have their reasons for everything, how toxic our ‘reasoning’, how blindly we move through our lives and each others, infecting those we love most with our choices. I imagine every reader will feel different emotions, certainly it seems damnation would be fair, if you are moved to justice. Everyone is a mystery, or a tragedy about to happen. How is Spurlock, a godly man, to unravel such inhumanity? How did he find himself a key player in a story of deception and fatherly love? The writing about Daniel’s job as a ‘therapist’ is gorgeous and humbling. In chapter 29, he tells of his years in practice dealing with his patients ‘astonishing disclosures’ and how little, in the end, they ‘alter the fabric of the patients life.’ These happenings that rupture the veil of our ordered life somehow always spit us back out to where we were. Everything changes, and yet nothing. Our lack of awareness is usually suspect, because all too often on some level we did know. All of it stood out to me, because it is a strange effect when something rocks our world, it may reverberate but does it change the past? That can be applied to any big moment, good or bad, if you can even label the things in a life as such. The world and all it’s inhabitants hurtle towards the future, unchanged by our victories and miseries. Life moves on much the same.
I will be thinking about this for days. It starts off slowly, but by the novels conclusion I was gutted. There are heartbreaking moments, and brutality that is shocking. It’s hard not to hold Daniel accountable, and yet impossible not to find compassion too. Are we all so disfigured? Maybe.
Publication Date: April 3, 2018
Random House Publishing
July 19, 2018
DNF: I appreciate literary fiction and I don’t mind learned authors but sometimes, you can go a bit too far to prove your writing worth. This novel will be a DNF. Why? Because EVERY paragraph is so riddled with descriptive prose that you forget what he is trying to tell you. It would be as if I said, “Her eyes were as dark as the winged crow that flies in the night looking to devour the black widow spider whilst she weaves a magical web intent on capturing her prey in order to devour same until it become the black excrement that leaves her body to enrich the black soil of the earth where all life begins again.” Wait…what? He didn’t really write this, but I can assure you this book needed a good editor. I am impressed with the author’s academic credentials and I appreciate he took the time to write his book but by page 13 it was obvious I was sinking into a rather pretentious read aimed to impress the mere Mensa mortals deemed worthy to read this tome. God bless his heart. #literaryfiction #fiction #book #books #pretentious #sorrynotsorry #bibliophile #bookworm #bookstagram #dnf
April 21, 2018
The Waters & The Wild
is a book I would recommend only to those with strong literary leanings, and a particular interest in (or at least, patience for) psychological theory, theology and introspection. That is not to say this novel’s billing as a literary thriller is incorrect… It is simply that readers must traverse hundreds of pages of highly literary terrain before the thriller element really takes hold. It really needn’t have been that challenging. Yet the right reader, one that gives conscientious focus to the myriad tangents and imagery laid before them, will often find that ‘highly literary terrain’ profound; and dare I say it, in places majestic.
Read full review >>
March 27, 2018
This isn't really a thriller but it is a literary novel and how much you like it will depend on your patience with the writing style. The story moves back and forth in time and between narrators- Daniel Abend and Nelson Spurlock. Abend was a psychiatrist but he's also got a lot of secrets in his past, which his daughter Clementine works to untangle after his death. Much of this is tied up in his time in Paris with her mother Miriam. The writing occasionally overwhelms the story but this is something that could have been solved with an extra edit to peel away the extraneous. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. Try this if you like complicated tales where the truth eventually emerges.
July 8, 2018
this book was simply, not for me. It was poetic and beautifully written but confusing as it switched perspectives unclearly in too many words. I will be gifting this one to my lending library in hopes of it finding a home in someone else's heart.
April 2, 2019
Znáte to, když knížka na to vůbec nevypadá a podle anotace si myslíte, že máte v rukou něco a když se začtete a přečtete to, tak najednou zjistíte, že je to něco jiného a v konečném výsledku mnohem lepšího? Tak přesně tohle se mi stalo s knížkou Okem vrány. Myslela jsem si, že to bude psychologický román a komplikovaných vztazích mezi dětmi a rodiči, ale nakonec jsem zjistila, že je to naprosto skvělý psychothriller se zajímavým jazykem, sice trochu pomalejším tempem ale skvělým rozuzlením a celkově zpracováním.
Okem vrány je zpovědí psychoanalytika Daniela Abenda, kterého pacientka Jessica spáchala sebevraždu a tahle zpověď probíhá prostřednictvím listu, který přišel neznámému knězi, který tuto holku pohřbíval. A tak se postupně dozvídáme nejenom o Jessice, ale hlavně o životě Daniela Abenda, o jeho dceři, o období, kdy studoval ve Francii, o tom, jak se zamiloval, co všechno zažil a jaké to mělo následky. Celý tento příběh je propletený a doplněný útržkami různých myšlenek, úvah, poezii a dalším. Je to celé takové zamotané klubko a my to postupně rozmotáváme a místo to nejde vůbec lehko a ani rychle, ale je to napsané (nebo aspoň já jsem to tak vnímala) hypnotizujícím způsobem. Ten text je dost poetický, má svoji hezkou melodii, postupně plyne a kousek po kousku odkrývá, co se vlastně stalo a proč. To celé je proložené úvahami o životě, smrti, víře, Bohu, vztazích, lásce, zodpovědnosti či vině.
Ve své podstatě jde o thriller, ale určitě nečekejte rychlý spád nebo bezmyšlenkovité hltání stránek, tady jde o něco trochu jiného. Je to hloubavější knížka, na kterou je dobré si udělat pořádně čas a vnímat text. Je tam hodně myšlenkových odboček, které by klasickým čtenářům thrillerů vadily, já je prostě brala jako součást celku a na mě to působilo skvěle. A ten závěr? Boží!
Okem vrány je zpovědí psychoanalytika Daniela Abenda, kterého pacientka Jessica spáchala sebevraždu a tahle zpověď probíhá prostřednictvím listu, který přišel neznámému knězi, který tuto holku pohřbíval. A tak se postupně dozvídáme nejenom o Jessice, ale hlavně o životě Daniela Abenda, o jeho dceři, o období, kdy studoval ve Francii, o tom, jak se zamiloval, co všechno zažil a jaké to mělo následky. Celý tento příběh je propletený a doplněný útržkami různých myšlenek, úvah, poezii a dalším. Je to celé takové zamotané klubko a my to postupně rozmotáváme a místo to nejde vůbec lehko a ani rychle, ale je to napsané (nebo aspoň já jsem to tak vnímala) hypnotizujícím způsobem. Ten text je dost poetický, má svoji hezkou melodii, postupně plyne a kousek po kousku odkrývá, co se vlastně stalo a proč. To celé je proložené úvahami o životě, smrti, víře, Bohu, vztazích, lásce, zodpovědnosti či vině.
Ve své podstatě jde o thriller, ale určitě nečekejte rychlý spád nebo bezmyšlenkovité hltání stránek, tady jde o něco trochu jiného. Je to hloubavější knížka, na kterou je dobré si udělat pořádně čas a vnímat text. Je tam hodně myšlenkových odboček, které by klasickým čtenářům thrillerů vadily, já je prostě brala jako součást celku a na mě to působilo skvěle. A ten závěr? Boží!
June 17, 2018
I’ve always thought Benjamin Britten would have written great music for it, the Yeats poem that gives this book its title:
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
The poem appears in an envelope addressed to Daniel Abend, a psychoanalyst who lives in New York City. Along with the poem—handwritten, in the distinctive block capitals of the woman whom Daniel loved twenty years ago in Paris, who killed herself shortly after they ended their relationship—there is a photograph of Daniel’s former patient Jessica Burke, who died in her bathtub of a heroin overdose. She is supposed to have died alone, but the photograph suggests otherwise; someone else was there, someone who knows Daniel’s life and history, and who is bent on revenge.
Daniel reveals his story through a long confession written and sent to Father Nelson Spurlock, the vicar of the church in New York that conducts Jessica Burke’s funeral. Thus, as Spurlock reads the document, we too discover the secrets that Daniel has been living with, and keeping from his daughter Clementine. By its very nature, the confessional structure is a slow reveal; it takes almost the entire book for us to learn things that Daniel knows from the start. Sometimes it’s too slow. Harrison, like Benjamin Wood, wants us to see this story as somehow special or profound. He uses as many tricks as he can to imbue the narrative with weight: heavy foreshadowing, complex or inverted sentence structure that echoes biblical or poetic phrasing, introduction of religious themes (Daniel’s beloved is on track to become a nun), and of course that Yeats poem. Again, though, I don’t see that it works, and I don’t see why it’s even necessary to reach for it: the particular sins of Daniel’s life, his failures and his lies, are so commonplace and human. They have extreme consequences—a person’s death, a child’s life—but Harrison seems to want to introduce a metaphysical significance to the events of the plot that simply isn’t supported. There is a lot about shame and guilt and God, but these things can and should be invoked and felt deeply by the characters, without necessarily being a moral framework through which the reader ought to perceive the book.
The Waters and the Wild is helped, though, by that confessional structure: you want to read it all the way through because you do—even if frustrated by Daniel’s withholding—want to know what happened in the past, and how it is affecting the present. You want, perhaps most of all, to know his level of culpability: how much is he at fault? He is a thoroughly realised character, seemingly open but concealing much, perhaps because he is deceiving himself. That particular brand of unreliability makes a nice change from the other unreliable narrators of domestic noir, who tend to be alcoholic women. The Waters and the Wild is flawed in conception and execution, but it sets its sights much higher than most other books of its genre.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
The poem appears in an envelope addressed to Daniel Abend, a psychoanalyst who lives in New York City. Along with the poem—handwritten, in the distinctive block capitals of the woman whom Daniel loved twenty years ago in Paris, who killed herself shortly after they ended their relationship—there is a photograph of Daniel’s former patient Jessica Burke, who died in her bathtub of a heroin overdose. She is supposed to have died alone, but the photograph suggests otherwise; someone else was there, someone who knows Daniel’s life and history, and who is bent on revenge.
Daniel reveals his story through a long confession written and sent to Father Nelson Spurlock, the vicar of the church in New York that conducts Jessica Burke’s funeral. Thus, as Spurlock reads the document, we too discover the secrets that Daniel has been living with, and keeping from his daughter Clementine. By its very nature, the confessional structure is a slow reveal; it takes almost the entire book for us to learn things that Daniel knows from the start. Sometimes it’s too slow. Harrison, like Benjamin Wood, wants us to see this story as somehow special or profound. He uses as many tricks as he can to imbue the narrative with weight: heavy foreshadowing, complex or inverted sentence structure that echoes biblical or poetic phrasing, introduction of religious themes (Daniel’s beloved is on track to become a nun), and of course that Yeats poem. Again, though, I don’t see that it works, and I don’t see why it’s even necessary to reach for it: the particular sins of Daniel’s life, his failures and his lies, are so commonplace and human. They have extreme consequences—a person’s death, a child’s life—but Harrison seems to want to introduce a metaphysical significance to the events of the plot that simply isn’t supported. There is a lot about shame and guilt and God, but these things can and should be invoked and felt deeply by the characters, without necessarily being a moral framework through which the reader ought to perceive the book.
The Waters and the Wild is helped, though, by that confessional structure: you want to read it all the way through because you do—even if frustrated by Daniel’s withholding—want to know what happened in the past, and how it is affecting the present. You want, perhaps most of all, to know his level of culpability: how much is he at fault? He is a thoroughly realised character, seemingly open but concealing much, perhaps because he is deceiving himself. That particular brand of unreliability makes a nice change from the other unreliable narrators of domestic noir, who tend to be alcoholic women. The Waters and the Wild is flawed in conception and execution, but it sets its sights much higher than most other books of its genre.
July 12, 2020
*Adâncuri sălbatice* repezintă una dintre cărțile ce vor rămâne cu tine... la propriu. Ea își va face loc în subconștientul tău. Acest fapt nu este datorat firului narativ complicat sau realismului care se ascunde sub aparenta ficțiune, ci complexității de care dau dovadă personajele, cuvintelor alese cu grijă și împletiturii de elemente psihologice, filosofice și poetice.
Cartea poate repezenta o adevărată provocare literară, una pe care nu toți cititorii o vor finaliza. Recunosc că și pe mine m-a pierdut pe alocuri, *pe lângă ape și sălbăticiuni*. Este o lectură pentru care ai nevoie de 2 *unelte* magice: răbdare și timp. Personal, a durat cam 2 saptămâni până am reușit să o termin (noroc că pot citi în paralel și am combinat-o cu ceva mai ușor).
Este încadrată în nișa thrillerului psihologic, categorie care, după umila mea părere, nu îi face cinste. Într-adevăr, sunt prezente elemente ce definesc genul thriller: o sinucidere, colete anonime cu dovezi incriminatoare, amenințări voalate etc. Dar aceste elemente sunt eclipsate de cele psihologie, filosofice și poetice... cu mult eclipsate! Pe alocuri, introspecția poate deveni chiar covârșitoare și insuportabilă pentru unii iubitori ai genului thriller.
În privința autorului, nu pot spune că se simte neîdemanarea sau ezitarea unu începător. Ba din contră, dacă nu era menționat pe coperta anterioară, cu siguranță spuneam că are mai multe romane la activ.
Narațiunea este prezentată prin tehnica poveste în poveste, astfel setând un mediu propice pentru o mai amănunțită analiză psihologică. Ritmul în care se desfășoară acțiunea este unul lent, uneori foarte lent. Trecerile de la perspectiva narativă obiectivă la cea subiectivă pot să creeze o ușoară confuzie. Însă, pot fi trecute cu vederea odată ce ne obișnuim cu stilul autorului.
După cum am afirmat mai sus, lectura poate să nu fie plăcută pentru toată lumea. Dar merită o șansă! Niciodată nu știm cum este ceva cu adevărat, până nu încercăm. Te invit să explorezi adâncurile sălbaticie ale minții umane cât și restul recenziei: https://cartisiprafdestele.ro/recenzi...
Cartea poate repezenta o adevărată provocare literară, una pe care nu toți cititorii o vor finaliza. Recunosc că și pe mine m-a pierdut pe alocuri, *pe lângă ape și sălbăticiuni*. Este o lectură pentru care ai nevoie de 2 *unelte* magice: răbdare și timp. Personal, a durat cam 2 saptămâni până am reușit să o termin (noroc că pot citi în paralel și am combinat-o cu ceva mai ușor).
Este încadrată în nișa thrillerului psihologic, categorie care, după umila mea părere, nu îi face cinste. Într-adevăr, sunt prezente elemente ce definesc genul thriller: o sinucidere, colete anonime cu dovezi incriminatoare, amenințări voalate etc. Dar aceste elemente sunt eclipsate de cele psihologie, filosofice și poetice... cu mult eclipsate! Pe alocuri, introspecția poate deveni chiar covârșitoare și insuportabilă pentru unii iubitori ai genului thriller.
În privința autorului, nu pot spune că se simte neîdemanarea sau ezitarea unu începător. Ba din contră, dacă nu era menționat pe coperta anterioară, cu siguranță spuneam că are mai multe romane la activ.
Narațiunea este prezentată prin tehnica poveste în poveste, astfel setând un mediu propice pentru o mai amănunțită analiză psihologică. Ritmul în care se desfășoară acțiunea este unul lent, uneori foarte lent. Trecerile de la perspectiva narativă obiectivă la cea subiectivă pot să creeze o ușoară confuzie. Însă, pot fi trecute cu vederea odată ce ne obișnuim cu stilul autorului.
După cum am afirmat mai sus, lectura poate să nu fie plăcută pentru toată lumea. Dar merită o șansă! Niciodată nu știm cum este ceva cu adevărat, până nu încercăm. Te invit să explorezi adâncurile sălbaticie ale minții umane cât și restul recenziei: https://cartisiprafdestele.ro/recenzi...
June 2, 2018
The Waters & The Wild by DeSales Harrison is the story of a psychoanalyst with a past that comes back to haunt him.
Goodness, this book was a chore to get through! While I appreciated the writing style—simple, yet poetic—the story itself was very dull. I had a hard time getting through the book, and while I’m not one to give up on a book, I nearly gave up on this one. I don’t mind a book with a good slow burn, but there was nothing good about this burn.
The pace was slow—painfully slow. Not much seemed to happen the entire book, and some of the stuff that did happen, didn’t seem relevant once the book was finished. I will say that the last quarter of the book did pick up quite a bit pace-wise, but it wasn’t enough to redeem the rest of the book.
The story concept, while interesting, was poorly executed. Again, not much happened the entire book, and so much happened that didn’t really matter. It made for a meandering story that seemed somewhat pointless.
The ending was just okay. I did find Clementine’s origin story interesting—probably the most interesting thing that happened in the book—but otherwise the ending was one that begged for a quick skim.
The characters were average, though not that well defined. Miriam was probably the most well-developed of the characters in terms of personality. Of all the characters, she was the most fascinating. Her connection with the nuns and the odd life she led was interesting to read about. The other characters were fairly cookie-cutter, if not somewhat vague.
I’m disappointed, because this book had a lot of potential! Overall, this isn’t a book I can recommend to others. The cover is gorgeous, but the book didn’t live up to the gorgeous cover.
This review will be posted on my blog on Monday, June 4th, 2018.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing the Kindle version of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Goodness, this book was a chore to get through! While I appreciated the writing style—simple, yet poetic—the story itself was very dull. I had a hard time getting through the book, and while I’m not one to give up on a book, I nearly gave up on this one. I don’t mind a book with a good slow burn, but there was nothing good about this burn.
The pace was slow—painfully slow. Not much seemed to happen the entire book, and some of the stuff that did happen, didn’t seem relevant once the book was finished. I will say that the last quarter of the book did pick up quite a bit pace-wise, but it wasn’t enough to redeem the rest of the book.
The story concept, while interesting, was poorly executed. Again, not much happened the entire book, and so much happened that didn’t really matter. It made for a meandering story that seemed somewhat pointless.
The ending was just okay. I did find Clementine’s origin story interesting—probably the most interesting thing that happened in the book—but otherwise the ending was one that begged for a quick skim.
The characters were average, though not that well defined. Miriam was probably the most well-developed of the characters in terms of personality. Of all the characters, she was the most fascinating. Her connection with the nuns and the odd life she led was interesting to read about. The other characters were fairly cookie-cutter, if not somewhat vague.
I’m disappointed, because this book had a lot of potential! Overall, this isn’t a book I can recommend to others. The cover is gorgeous, but the book didn’t live up to the gorgeous cover.
This review will be posted on my blog on Monday, June 4th, 2018.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing the Kindle version of this book in exchange for an honest review.
May 9, 2018
Disclaimer: Won Goodread's giveaway. Free book in exchange for an honest review.
Quick review. This book was pretty good (a bit pretentious, which is not a bad thing).
I couldn't take Daniel seriously some of the time, which took me out of the story at times.
Good use of unreliable narrator. Interesting twist ending.
That cover is gorgeous.
Quick review. This book was pretty good (a bit pretentious, which is not a bad thing).
I couldn't take Daniel seriously some of the time, which took me out of the story at times.
Good use of unreliable narrator. Interesting twist ending.
That cover is gorgeous.
January 13, 2023
I can’t express how dull and depressing this book was. I gave it one star for effort.
May 12, 2020
Adâncuri sălbatice este catalogat ca fiind un thriller orbitor, însă dpmdv este mai degrabă o carte psihologică, un thriller psihologic dacă vreţi, ce se citeste greu si ameteste cititorul de la prima la ultima pagina. Iubesc thrillerele, citesc des cărţi din această categorie şi asta a fost unul din motivele pentru care mi-am cumpărat cartea (pe langa faptul ca are o coperte superba), însă vă spun de la început că nu a fost pe gustul meu. Lecturând, m-am simţit constant proastă. Nu ştiam de unde să apuc povestea. Acum eram în prezent, ca imediat să aterizăm în trecutul lui Daniel. Trecerile astea m-au zăpăcit în asemenea hal, încât nu mai eram sigură de ceea ce citeam. Au fost pasaje întregi pe care le-am reluat, ca să înţeleg exact ce vrea să transmită sau ce se întâmplă, au fost o gramada de cuvinte in franceza pe care nu le-am inteles, pt ca ghici ce, nu stiu franceza... de fapt, pe scurt... n-am rezonat deloc cu povestea. Partea cu personajul anonim si cu plasarea criminalului... nu am înţeles-o, dar na, poate chiar nu am fost într-o stare bună pentru această poveste. În linii mari, povestea este despre Daniel, un psihanalist renumit. O pacientă de-a lui moare. După 3 ani, acesta primeşte în cutia poştală o fotografie cu tânăra moartă... numai că ceea ce fusese catalogat ca o sinucidere, da semne că n-ar fi, şi de aici începe o întreagă frământare internă a doctorului care se pierde pe sine, încercând să desluşească misterul fetei. Lucrurile se complică atunci când Clementine, fiica doctorului, pleacă de acasă, sătulă de sufocarea tatălui (tata disperat ca fiica lui să nu păţească ceva). Spovedania doctorului (pt că toată povestea este scrisă ca o spovedanie pentru preotul Spurlock), da de înţeles că acesta a păţit ceva, dar nu şti ce şi citeşti, citeşti tot sperând să afli. Intervin şi alţi factori din trecutul nu prea drăguţ al doctorului şi astfel iese o poveste greuta, căreia i-a lipsit factorul wow, acel lucru care să mă dea peste cap şi să-mi facă mintea fundiţa. Lectura a mers asa de greu... ca-mi venea sa plang. Daca n-as fi o masochista care nu renunta la carti, ar fi zburat de mult, dar pt ca sunt... am tras de ea o zi intreaga.
Cu toate astea, cred că celor care sunt pasionaţi de psihologie, de mintea omului şi acţiunile acesteia, această carte le va plăcea. Eu sunt în perioada cărţilor young, aşa că asta nu m-a coafat. 2 stele.
Cu toate astea, cred că celor care sunt pasionaţi de psihologie, de mintea omului şi acţiunile acesteia, această carte le va plăcea. Eu sunt în perioada cărţilor young, aşa că asta nu m-a coafat. 2 stele.
April 4, 2018
The Waters & The Wild by DeSales Harrison is a recommended mystery - for the right reader.
First Father Nelson Spurlock has a young women visit him, looking for something her father may have sent him. Later Spurlock receives through the mail the confession, of sorts, from a man he doesn't know. The writer is Daniel Abend, a psychoanalyst and single father living in New York City and father of a teenage daughter, Clementine, the young woman who must have been Spurlock's visitor. Abend apparently had an affair years earlier with a woman in Paris, presumably the mother of his daughter. When one of his patients commits suicide, Spurlock delivered the eulogy, which is what brought the man to Abend's attention. After this death, however, his daughter disappears and Abend begins to receive threatening messages, which lead him to examine his past.
While the writing is beautiful in this novel and the mystery is intriguing, the presentation and the prose overwhelm the plot. The beginning starts out strong, but after that the sheer barrage of language eliminates some of the pleasure of following the twists and turns of the story. The narrative mostly moves along at a crawl and I began to lose patience with the florid language of the prose and snail's pace of the plot. It must also be said that at times it was difficult to follow which character was talking as they weren't presented from the start as unique individuals. At the conclusion, it is an interesting story but, for me, a struggle to finish. 2.5 rounded up for the right reader.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of the Random House Publishing Group.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2018/0...
First Father Nelson Spurlock has a young women visit him, looking for something her father may have sent him. Later Spurlock receives through the mail the confession, of sorts, from a man he doesn't know. The writer is Daniel Abend, a psychoanalyst and single father living in New York City and father of a teenage daughter, Clementine, the young woman who must have been Spurlock's visitor. Abend apparently had an affair years earlier with a woman in Paris, presumably the mother of his daughter. When one of his patients commits suicide, Spurlock delivered the eulogy, which is what brought the man to Abend's attention. After this death, however, his daughter disappears and Abend begins to receive threatening messages, which lead him to examine his past.
While the writing is beautiful in this novel and the mystery is intriguing, the presentation and the prose overwhelm the plot. The beginning starts out strong, but after that the sheer barrage of language eliminates some of the pleasure of following the twists and turns of the story. The narrative mostly moves along at a crawl and I began to lose patience with the florid language of the prose and snail's pace of the plot. It must also be said that at times it was difficult to follow which character was talking as they weren't presented from the start as unique individuals. At the conclusion, it is an interesting story but, for me, a struggle to finish. 2.5 rounded up for the right reader.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of the Random House Publishing Group.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2018/0...
March 25, 2018
The author's writing style has a beautiful literary quality with a poetic feel. Taken in small doses, it really is captivating. Unfortunately, style dominates and monopolizes, so the story gets lost somewhere in the overflow of words.
The story has two narrators. Daniel is the main narrator, and his part is in first person. Father Spurlock's parts are smaller and written in third person. These two characters are completely interchangeable. The same is true of Daniel's daughter and her mother. Their two characters are carbon copies in many ways. This is largely because the narration is more about the author's own literary style than the characters as unique individuals.
Pacing is incredibly slow. The characters are full of introspection. We ponder and lament and worry, but not much of anything actually happens for the longest time. The mystery and any possible suspense are completely swallowed up within the melodrama of Daniel's psyche and the homogeneity of the characters' voices.
For me, style overshadowed substance to the point where I was bored with the story.
*I received an advance copy from the publisher, via Amazon Vine, in exchange for my honest review.*
The story has two narrators. Daniel is the main narrator, and his part is in first person. Father Spurlock's parts are smaller and written in third person. These two characters are completely interchangeable. The same is true of Daniel's daughter and her mother. Their two characters are carbon copies in many ways. This is largely because the narration is more about the author's own literary style than the characters as unique individuals.
Pacing is incredibly slow. The characters are full of introspection. We ponder and lament and worry, but not much of anything actually happens for the longest time. The mystery and any possible suspense are completely swallowed up within the melodrama of Daniel's psyche and the homogeneity of the characters' voices.
For me, style overshadowed substance to the point where I was bored with the story.
*I received an advance copy from the publisher, via Amazon Vine, in exchange for my honest review.*
January 4, 2019
My feelings are mixed on this book. I appreciate the flowery prose, the atmospheric setting, and the story line; however, it put me to sleep. I kept trying to push through so I could absorb enough to provide a substantial review, but I only made it 30% into the story. The cover drew me in when I first saw it, and honestly, it does represent the book well. The poem from which the title comes is beautiful, so I can understand the choice to use a cover like this. It might appeal to a different type of reader; I typically choose historical fiction or mystery. This contained some of that but it seemed to be more literary than I am used to.
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