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The Weight of Water
by
Anita Shreve
"I wonder this: If you take a woman and push her to the edge, how will she behave?" The question is posed by Jean, a photographer, who arrives on Smuttynose Island, off the coast of New Hampshire, to research a century-old crime. As she immerses herself in the details of the case--an outburst of passion that resulted in the deaths of two women--Jean herself enter...more
Mass Market Paperbound, 304 pages
Published
March 1st 2001
by Little Brown and Company
(first published 1997)
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22. "On a small island off the New Hampshire coast in 1873, two women were brutally murdered by an unknown assailant. A third woman survived the attack, hiding in a sea cave until dawn. More than a century later, a photographer, Jean, comes to the island to shoot a photo-essay about the legendary crime. Immersing herself in accounts of the lives of the fishermen's wives who were its victims, she becomes obsessed with the barrenness of these women's days: the ardor-killing labor, the long st...more
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“I learned that night that love is never as ferocious as when you think it is going to leave you. We are not always allowed this knowledge, and so our love sometimes becomes retrospective.”
Anita Shreve has such a somber but beautiful voice. Her stories are incredibly emotional.
The plot was somewhat scattered and none of the characters were developed enough for me to love them. However, that didn’t take away from this book for me, as it usually would. Some writers, good ...more
Anita Shreve has such a somber but beautiful voice. Her stories are incredibly emotional.
The plot was somewhat scattered and none of the characters were developed enough for me to love them. However, that didn’t take away from this book for me, as it usually would. Some writers, good ...more
Gail
rated it
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
ladies looking for a beach read; romantic teenagers
Anita Shreve could be described as a guilty pleasure...like potato chips. I thought this was one of her better efforts, with interwoven plots, some great characterization, and a very sure hand with the New England background. Even though I saw the present-day plot twist coming from about page 10, the book still held my interest...I mentally screamed, "Look out! Disaster ahead!" several times. I enjoyed this book very much, but most of her others, notably "The Pilot's Wife" (g...more
One of those novels that is 2 stories in one. A contemporary story of a woman, her husband and daughter, sailing with his brother and the brother's girlfriend off the coast of New Hampshire and Maine so she can photograph the scene of a murder that took place 150 years earlier. The tension of the people on the boat is revealed right away.
And then through trial transcripts and a memoir that has never been found before, the story of Norwegian immigrants who settled on this islands off...more
And then through trial transcripts and a memoir that has never been found before, the story of Norwegian immigrants who settled on this islands off...more
Anita Shreve wrote two tragic tales, separated by more than 100 years, and coiled them seamlessly into one compelling narrative.
In the novel, a photojournalist named Jean gets an assignment to do a photo essay on a 100-year-old double -murder that happened on the isles of Shoals, a tiny group of islands off the coast of New Hampshire. Jean brings along her poet husband, her five-years-old daughter, her brother-in-low and his new girlfriend.
Shreve skillfully got me involved in the soap opera w...more
In the novel, a photojournalist named Jean gets an assignment to do a photo essay on a 100-year-old double -murder that happened on the isles of Shoals, a tiny group of islands off the coast of New Hampshire. Jean brings along her poet husband, her five-years-old daughter, her brother-in-low and his new girlfriend.
Shreve skillfully got me involved in the soap opera w...more
After reading the hefty and only half good Fortune's Rocks I wanted to read some more of Shreve so I picked the slimmest volume in the bookshop hoping that she could write more consistently compellingly in a shorter work. And I got what I wanted - this book would have been unputdownable if I hadn't have had so much to do. I woke up before my alarm this morning and before I got a chance to decide whether I really ought to try and get a little more sleep my head had decided I needed to finish th
...more
The Weight of Water is a book I just read for my book group. Anita Shreve's books aren't normally ones I would pick to read, so this was a bit of a challenge.
I have to say that I didn't really care too much for the modern-day people and their woes. I just couldn't relate to the female characters here (either Jean or Adaline) as real people with real problems. However, I did enjoy the story about the Norwegian immigrants who came to Smuttynose Island. They had some serious issues ...more
I have to say that I didn't really care too much for the modern-day people and their woes. I just couldn't relate to the female characters here (either Jean or Adaline) as real people with real problems. However, I did enjoy the story about the Norwegian immigrants who came to Smuttynose Island. They had some serious issues ...more
It's very rare that a book -- especially a standard-issue novel -- sends me to the dictionary. This one did not once, but twice, and early in the book. Although I've heard both words many times, and knew in general what they meant, I felt compelled to look up their real meanings, given the sentences they fell in. The sentences, with the words in italics below:
"The island is not barren, but it is sere and bleak."
"The Isles of Shoals, an archipelago, lie in the Atlant...more
"The island is not barren, but it is sere and bleak."
"The Isles of Shoals, an archipelago, lie in the Atlant...more
Harmonybites
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Recommended to Harmonybites by:
The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Ultimate Reading List
I couldn't warm to this book. I think it tries too hard, it feels affected, insincere. It's mostly told from the perspective of Jean. She's a photographer sent to get photographs of Smuttynose, Maine, part of the Shoal Islands near Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In 1873, it was the setting of a gruesome double murder, so she visits the island accompanied by her husband, five-year-old daughter and her brother-in-law and his girlfriend. The novel is mostly written in a first person present voice that ...more
Having lived in so many areas of the country, I have always enjoyed reading works of fiction by authors who are local to the area where I am currently living. It is interesting to get a regional historical perspective through the intertwining of real places, people and events in order to understand the backdrop for an author’s story.
Anita Shreve is a masterful author from New England who has taken a real event—a horrific double murder of two Norwegian women in the Isle of Shoals in t...more
Anita Shreve is a masterful author from New England who has taken a real event—a horrific double murder of two Norwegian women in the Isle of Shoals in t...more
I was surprised when I finished this book to discover I kind of liked it when there are so many reasons not to.
1)The long and largely irrelevant passages about Maren's life in Norway.
2) The unexplained hostility between the two sisters (Maren and Karen--yikes--imagination where art thou?)
3)The past story of the murders and the present tale of jealousy went off the rails at the critical moment. Frankly, the whole narrative from the past didn't hang together very well.
...more
1)The long and largely irrelevant passages about Maren's life in Norway.
2) The unexplained hostility between the two sisters (Maren and Karen--yikes--imagination where art thou?)
3)The past story of the murders and the present tale of jealousy went off the rails at the critical moment. Frankly, the whole narrative from the past didn't hang together very well.
...more
Anita Shreve (author of the much-touted "The Pilot’s Wife") has done the near-impossible in "The Weight of Water." She has written two tragic tales, separated by more than 100 years, and coiled them seamlessly into one compelling narrative. This is one of the most emotional, provocative and exciting novels I’ve read in a long time. For those who dismissed "The Pilot’s Wife" with a shrug, this is THE Shreve novel to search out at the local bookstore. "The Weight...more
A tale of love and jealousy. A tale of what happens when these are the emotions that rule one's life. This is Anita Shreeve's The Weight of Water. It is told through recollections and journals of recollections. It is a novel set in two time periods, one hundred years apart. The main device in the novel, as one may guess is water. But a secondary device used to a better purpose is a fisherman's net. The fisherman's net serves to connect the stories of these disparate women a century apart....more
A gripping and hauntng tale that weaves the past into the present with brilliant subtlety. Jean is on assignment to photograph the sight of a long ago murder on Smuttynose Island off the coast of New Hampshire. She along with her husband and five year old daughter decide to turn the assignment into a vacation with her brother in law and his new girlfriend on their sailboat.
Jean discovers a lost archive in Portsmouth's library including a narrative from the sole survivor of the murders. As ...more
Jean discovers a lost archive in Portsmouth's library including a narrative from the sole survivor of the murders. As ...more
My friend lent this to me while traveling in Spain since my other books were stolen. I doubt that I would have picked it up on my own. The double story of a woman who travels to an island off Portsmouth NH (Smuttynose--there is a present day brewery of that name in Portsmouth--who knew?) to research the 19c murder of two women on the island, interspersed with the story of the murders by one of the survivors. The present day story seems poorly grounded....what magazine would pay a photographer to...more
This is a book of two tales. In the present day tale, we follow Jean, who is photographing the scene, on a island, of an old crime. She, her husband Thomas, her husband’s brother and his girlfriend, as well as Jean and Thomas’ daughter Billie, are on a small boat of the coast of New Hampshire. The old crime she is connected to is the murder of two Norwegian immigrant women on the island of Smuttynose in the 19th century.
The second story, interwoven with Jean’s story, is the first han...more
The second story, interwoven with Jean’s story, is the first han...more
This is an interesting book as it is two simultaneous and interwoven stories, one set in current day and one back in time. Anita seamlessly switches between the stories and keeps the reader engaged. Set in New England, you can feel the cold winters and the storms as the present day heroine, a newspaper photographer, learns more about herself in the search for the truth of a historic double axe murder. The story line is haunting and it pulls at your emotions. Definitely worth reading.
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"I wonder this: If you take a woman and push her to the edge, how will she behave?" The question is posed by Jean, a photographer, who in 1995 arrives on Smuttynose Island, off the coast of Maine, to research a century-old crime. As she immerses herself in the details of the case -- an outburst of passion that resulted in the deaths of two women -- Jean herself enters precarious emotional territory. The suspicion that her husband is having an affair burgeons into jealousy and distrust,...more
I chose this book because I had enjoyed The Pilot's Wife, which resonated strongly with me, I suppose in part because it was about the loss of love and how little we may really know of those we love.
I had also read and enjoyed The Last Time They Met, which was a follow-up of sorts to The Weight of Water.
I must admit I was somewhat disappointed with this book. I'm not a big fan of true crime novels - unless you are Truman Capote it is hard to carry off - and I thought that th...more
I had also read and enjoyed The Last Time They Met, which was a follow-up of sorts to The Weight of Water.
I must admit I was somewhat disappointed with this book. I'm not a big fan of true crime novels - unless you are Truman Capote it is hard to carry off - and I thought that th...more
I've read four or five Anita Shreve books, and I feel that this one belongs lower down the heap. The problems are that from the beginning you know that things are going to 'come to a climax' and with that in mind there are only a couple of ways it can go, making it a bit predictable.
Telling two stories in parallel, with the story from the past filtered through a character in the present, is a nice structure, and one Shreve has used successfully in the past.
On the upside, the setting ...more
Telling two stories in parallel, with the story from the past filtered through a character in the present, is a nice structure, and one Shreve has used successfully in the past.
On the upside, the setting ...more
Definitely an evocative novel, the grimness of the Northeastern Atlantic was all there and the fated relationship between the main couple was clear from Shreve's nuanced description of their day-to-day interactions. Unfortunately, that's really the only strong point of this novel. Minus these poignant descriptions, the rest of the plot was unnecessarily drawn out to supposedly create some sort of suspense that falls terribly flat. This is not a "whodunnit" tale and only a inattentive r...more
This wasn't a bad book. I enjoyed the parallels between the lives of the survivor of the murders on the island of Smuttynose and the modern-day woman delving into the history of the tragedy. I also enjoyed pondering the question raised near the end: what does someone who suffers a tragedy need to leave behind in order to go on with her life?
The style of the book was a little tedious and confusing at times, though. Shreve jumped back and forth from a fictional confessional about the 1...more
The style of the book was a little tedious and confusing at times, though. Shreve jumped back and forth from a fictional confessional about the 1...more
This book may be best summed up as a summer read, chick lit guiltily knotted into historical fiction. Anita Shreve binds together the gristly 19th c. murders at Smuttynose, a small island off the coast of New Hampshire, with the slow keening of a contemporary marriage.
As a child I grew up sailing and anchoring off the Isles of Shoals, listening to tales of the pirate Bluebeard, treasure and murder; swimming in the deep black waters; and exploring Smuttynose and the Haley house (of w...more
As a child I grew up sailing and anchoring off the Isles of Shoals, listening to tales of the pirate Bluebeard, treasure and murder; swimming in the deep black waters; and exploring Smuttynose and the Haley house (of w...more
While its language is gorgeous in that it succeeds in evoking the watery imagery and its related metaphor that Shreve pulls through the novel, the novel felt somewhat contrived. Shreve interweaves the frame story of a photographer researching the brutal murder of two immigrant women on the Isle of Shoals with the historical narrative of the sole survivor of the attack that resulted in the murders. In the frame story, the photographer suspects that her husband is having an affair with his broth...more
In one word, depressing.
It's the mid-nineties and Jean, her husband Thomas, and her daughter Billie are on a chartered boat with her brother-in-law Rich and his girlfriend, Adeline. Jean has to do a photo essay of some islands off the coast of Maine where a horrific murder took place in the 1800's. Jean becomes fascinated with the crime, starts to believe that her husband is having an affair, and becomes so emotionally unstable that she finds she is capable of committing horrific...more
It's the mid-nineties and Jean, her husband Thomas, and her daughter Billie are on a chartered boat with her brother-in-law Rich and his girlfriend, Adeline. Jean has to do a photo essay of some islands off the coast of Maine where a horrific murder took place in the 1800's. Jean becomes fascinated with the crime, starts to believe that her husband is having an affair, and becomes so emotionally unstable that she finds she is capable of committing horrific...more
Este livro suscitou em mim emoções contraditórias. Primeiro porque achei em certas partes a narrativa maçadora, mas depois, sobretudo para o fim do romance, tornou-se bastante empolgante saber-se o desenrolar tanto do crime antigo, como do próprio romance actual vivenciado entre a personagem principal e secundárias.
Fazendo uma análise geral do livro gostei do livro no seu todo, embora mais na parte final, visto ter tido bastante mais acção e menos “palha” e momentos supérfluos.
Jean le...more
Fazendo uma análise geral do livro gostei do livro no seu todo, embora mais na parte final, visto ter tido bastante mais acção e menos “palha” e momentos supérfluos.
Jean le...more
This is one of those books whose characters linger after the last page (except I'm not there yet!)Present time is juxtaposed with an actual 19th century murder on the Isles of Shoales off the New Hampshire coast...although the actual trial transcript is part of the plot, the events surrounding the murder and the parallel modern day plot are both fiction.
Occasionally there are stories that reach beyond my imagination to my heart and soul where they clamp on and won't let go. This book was one of those. I read for a multitude of reasons; for instance, I like to be entertained, to learn, to have "been there and done that" if only in my mind...and so forth. I can identify with characters or situations or I can vicariously share in ideas or activities that I'd never in a million years actually experience. With this book, however, I was...more
The book is poetic, intriguing, and dream-like. The authors use of language to literally paint how a mind works is miraculous and the dual narrative and go-between facts and plot were a perfect blend to a double-edeged story-line. However, I feel the book was almost rushed at the end. I was a little disappointed in the revelation at the end of the century-old narrative, feeling that it was expected and lacked the passion it attempted to explain. Also, the current-age story seemed to push you off...more
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Anita Shreve grew up in Dedham, Massachusetts (just outside Boston), the eldest of three daughters. Early literary influences include having read Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton when she was a junior in high school (a short novel she still claims as one of her favorites) and everything Eugene O'Neill ever wrote while she was a senior (to which she attributes a somewhat dark streak in her own work). A...more
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“I learned that night that love is never as ferocious as when you think it is going to leave you. We are not always allowed this knowledge, and so our love sometimes becomes retrospective.”
—
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“Sometimes I think that if it were possible to tell a story often enough to make the hurt ease up, to make the words slide down my arms and away from me like water, I would tell that story a thousand times.”
—
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