Review of Summer She Was Under Water at Washington Independent Review of Books
I was surprised and flattered to read Emily Mitchell's review of The Summer She Was Under Water at the Washington Independent Review of Books today:
"In the novel as a whole, there is a scrupulous lack of sentimentality and no recourse to easy resolution or redemption. Instead, we see the way that, in the long arc of parental and sibling relationships, each change begets new complexities and entanglements. Even when you try to force a crisis or stage a reckoning, it does not always provide the catharsis you anticipate.
Your relatives, the novel seems to say, whether or not you like them or accept them, go right on being your relatives, regardless. The result is a stark but absorbing portrait of the complex intersection of love, frustration, forgiveness, and anger that make up this — or any — family."
To read more, go here.
"In the novel as a whole, there is a scrupulous lack of sentimentality and no recourse to easy resolution or redemption. Instead, we see the way that, in the long arc of parental and sibling relationships, each change begets new complexities and entanglements. Even when you try to force a crisis or stage a reckoning, it does not always provide the catharsis you anticipate.
Your relatives, the novel seems to say, whether or not you like them or accept them, go right on being your relatives, regardless. The result is a stark but absorbing portrait of the complex intersection of love, frustration, forgiveness, and anger that make up this — or any — family."
To read more, go here.