Ppk27 Weight of Water the

Rating:
Summary: COMPELLING, ABSORBING, POWERFUL
Review: This is an exceptionally well-written tour de force about complex emotions. Written is clean, spare prose, it is two stories in one, each with its own voice, demanding to be heard. It is, without a doubt, a book to remember.

It tells the story of Jean, a news photographer who sets out on a sailboat to a remote island off the coast of New Hampshire, accompanied by her husband, Thomas, her five year old daughter, Billie, her brother-in-law, Rich, and his girl friend of several months, Adaline. The purpose of her visit is to photograph the scene of a nineteenth century double murder that saw two Norwegian, immigrant women hacked to death, which murders were much ballyhooed at the time as the crime of the century.

While there, she discovers an uncatalogued translation of the personal journal of the ostensible lone, female eyewitness, Maren Hontvedt, who seemed to have survived the carnage. Written in a somber and ruminative tone, the journal of Maren's life and of the events that led up to the carnage forms a core of the story. Maren's journal provides a framework for looking at the angst of Jean's present which is haunted by passion, jealousy, and betrayal. It is through Maren's story that Jean herself comes to terms with her own personal tragedy.

Alternating between Jean's unraveling present and the secrets of the past, the book provides a compelling, absorbing and suspenseful narrative, keeping the reader in its thrall. The two juxtaposed dramas come together in a primal and tragic climax. Those who read this book will find themselves haunted by it.