We Are Water by Wally Lamb

We Are Water
by Wally Lamb
Harper, 2013
576 pages
source: purchased

Publisher's summary:
We Are Water  is a disquieting and ultimately uplifting novel about a marriage, a family, and human resilience in the face of tragedy, from Wally Lamb, the New York Times bestselling author of The Hour I First Believed  and I Know This Much Is True.

After 27 years of marriage and three children, Anna Oh—wife, mother, outsider artist—has fallen in love with Viveca, the wealthy Manhattan art dealer who orchestrated her success. They plan to wed in the Oh family’s hometown of Three Rivers in Connecticut. But the wedding provokes some very mixed reactions and opens a Pandora’s Box of toxic secrets—dark and painful truths that have festered below the surface of the Ohs’ lives.

We Are Water is a layered portrait of marriage, family, and the inexorable need for understanding and connection, told in the alternating voices of the Ohs—nonconformist, Anna; her ex-husband, Orion, a psychologist; Ariane, the do-gooder daughter, and her twin, Andrew, the rebellious only son; and free-spirited Marissa, the youngest. It is also a portrait of modern America, exploring issues of class, changing social mores, the legacy of racial violence, and the nature of creativity and art.

With humor and compassion, Wally Lamb brilliantly captures the essence of human experience and the ways in which we search for love and meaning in our lives.

My thoughts:

Wally Lamb is one of my favorite authors. When he writes a novel, it's always a "must read". This time I purchased the kindle edition because we were going on vacation and I didn't feel like lugging around a nearly 600 page hardcover.

As it turned out, We Are Water lead me on a different kind of journey. It is populated by typical Lamb characters - very real, but flawed. As usual, I delighted in the mention of familiar landmarks - Claire's in New Haven, CT and Syracuse University. And, as always, I loved Lamb's storytelling.

Yet somehow, this novel didn't have quite the same impact as his earlier works. I shed no tears, nor did I laugh out loud. Maybe the dark underbelly of humanity played too prominent a role this time. I found the pedophilia and abuse to be repulsive... and felt like I needed a shower after spending time with those characters. {However, as I type, it occurs to me that the revulsion is actually a different sort of impact.}

Despite hints of redemption, this was all a bit too much for me - too many story lines, too much dysfunction, too many pages. I am quite certain another excellent Lamb novel was in there but, with so much to wade through, I never quite found it.

Don't get me wrong. We Are Water  is still a good book with marvelous storytelling and I'm glad to have read it. Even though it will not be a favorite, it made me want to reread The Hour I First Believed or I Know This Much is True.

I love Wally Lamb's style.

My rating: