Waterborne

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous Writer
Review: I agree entirely with the previous reviewers. There is so much in this book; beautifully written history of the depression era, characters who you really care about (or fear), all in a style that is so well developed is sounds a little like John Steinbeck. I really can't understand why the book was not a bestseller. I can only guess that this author is not well known amoung the NY literary intelligentsia. I am doing my best to tell everyone about it. Mr. Murkoff, please continue to write such wonderful material.

Rating:
Summary: Terrible!
Review: I bought this book based on these feeble minded reviews. This novel is filled with cliches and HORRIBLY edited! This is the writing of a novice writer, something you'd expect from a subsidy press. Don't believe me? On page 12, there are over 25 cliches in a single paragraph, and it doesn't stop there. It keeps going and going for 397 horrible overwritten sloppy prose. Here are some of the cliches, about Filius's father pulling him out of the water:

"A violent thunderstorm tore up the sky. Dark clouds, heavy and slow, despite the screaming wind... like a bouquet of black roses." (um, like is there anything original here? Just count the number of cliches- I shall continue, but 7 cliches here)

"A roll of thunder ended with a bang he felt deep in his chest."- 3 cliches in a row! Wow!
"The lake churned below..."
"He looked up into the black gloom..."
"The welts of brightness that shattered the sky..."
"lulled by the rhythmic pouinding that beat in his ears... washing over the pier." this time it's 4 for 4!
"For a moment he was swimming in air- weightless..." 2 for 2!

And it goes on and on, and this isn't even all the cliches in this one paragraph even! C'mon people! Anyone who can't see this is abysmal writing doesn't know what they are talking about. Any halfway decent editor should have caught this, but it just goes to show how bad editors are. For a novel being praised as one that 'constructs vivid lives as well as the heart and breadth of the country' is certainly not going to get it here, in this novel. This prose is flat and dull, and no editor should have deluded poor Bruce into thinking he has any writing talent. A novel like this just confirms the horror that passes for fiction today. The dialoge, too, consists of a bunch of card-board cut outs and stereotypes and overwritten, dull descriptive cliches that serve no purpose. (Such as this rote description of this woman in a bathtub looking at her pubic hair, that is neiter 1) described well, nor 2) has anything of insight to offer. What is the point? Merkoff has nothing to say, for not even he knows. Again, where are the editors? But let me end with the brilliance of (from page 115):

"...rain became mixed with blood...scarlet drops turning pink with skydriven water.
Rain and blood.
And the storm was upon them."

Cue the 2001 Space Odyssey music. Foreboding is it? I think not. What laziness. Go make some popcorn.

Rating:
Summary: Three streams converge....
Review: In the same way that three streams begin in different places and converge to become a river, so too do the characters Filius, Lena, and Lew start in Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and New York, each heading to the construction town of Boulder City, Nevada.

In the tradition of John Dos Passos (U.S.A. Trilogy), Murkoff tells one character's story, then breaks at the perfect moment to take up another character's story.

This is compelling reading!

Rating:
Summary: Where did this author come from?!
Review: This is the first review that I have written. Bruce Murkoff is a writer of the first order. His evocation of turn-of-the-century America up to the Depression era ia astounding. Best fiction I have found in over a year. Abosultely, stunningly good. Writes like someone who has lived rather than someone who wants to be a writer....I only wish I had been so inspired on visit to the Hoover dam in 1980! ;>) Watch this book and author begin to gain critical acclaim. But that's not what's important, Mr. Murkoff has come out of nowhere and is better (way better) than authors who fill pages with junk. This is a talent of the first order.

Rating:
Summary: Top shelf - outstanding
Review: Waterborne is a gritty, sexy tale of three people looking for redemption and fulfillment in a new life. Mr Murkoff does an excellent job of creating characters we can love, hate, empathize with, but never be indifferent about. What a talent!

The raging Colorado River and the construction of the Hoover Dam is an ever present metaphor throughout the story. Ingenious storytelling!

Once I started this book I didn't want to put it down but then nearing the end I didn't want the book to end.