The Watery Part of the World

by Michael Parker

Michael Parker has created a wholly original world from two known facts: (1) Theodosia Burr Alston, daughter of the controversial vice president Aaron Burr, disappeared in 1813 while en route by schooner from South Carolina to New York; and (2) in 1970, two elderly white women and one black man were the last townspeople to leave a small barrier island off the coast of North Carolina.

In this fiction based on historical fact, Parker weaves a tale of adventure and longing as he charts one hundred and fifty years in the life and death of an island and its inhabitants— the descendants of Theodosia Burr Alston and those of the freed man whose family would be forever tethered to hers.

It’s a tale of pirates and slaves, treason and treasures, madness and devotion, that takes place on a tiny island battered by storms, infested with mosquitoes, and cut off from the world—as difficult to get to as it is impossible to leave for those who call it home. From Theodosia’s capture at sea to the passionate lives of her great-great-great-granddaughters to the tender story of the black man who cares for them all his days, this is an inspired novel about love, trust, and the often tortuous bonds of family and community.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Book Club, Pirates, Adult Fiction, Literary Fiction

261 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

MICHAEL PARKER is the author of five novels – Hello Down There, Towns Without Rivers, Virginia Lovers, If You Want Me To Stay, The Watery Part of the World and two collections of stories, The Geographical Cure and Don’t Make Me Stop Now. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in various journals including Five Points, the Georgia Review, The Idaho Review, the Washington Post, the New York Times Magazine, Oxford American, Shenandoah, The Black Warrior Review, Trail Runner and Runner’s World. He has received fellowships in fiction from the North Carolina Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the Hobson Award for Arts and Letters, and the North Carolina Award for Literature. His work has been anthologized in the Pushcart, New Stories from the South and O. Henry Prize Stories anthologies. A graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill and the University of Virginia, he is a Professor in the MFA Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His website is www.michaelfparker.com

Reviews

[Leila · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book received a good review in The Washington Post and I had high hopes for it. I thought the premise sounded so interesting: in 1813, Theodosia Burr Alston, the daughter of disgraced former VP Aaron Burr (who had killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel and tried to create an empire in Mexico) disappeared at sea somewhere off the coast of North Carolina. This is a true fact. But in this novel, Parker imagines that Theodosia did not die in a shipwreck (probably what truly occurred), but that her ship was boarded by pirates who tricked the captain during a storm. The head pirate allowed Theodosia to live, and she remained on an outer island of the Outer Banks. She shacked up with a hermit/reformed pirate, and their descendants still lived in relative isolation on the island in 1970. The story switches back and forth between Theodosia's experience and her 1970s-era descendants. Ok, good raw material for a novel... but somehow this one doesn't quite work. I never felt a particularly strong connection to the characters, and the more modern part of the story fell flat for me. I would have preferred more about Theodosia. However, even the historical parts of the novel were sometimes frustrating to me, in part because of some questions I felt Parker never fully answered (why would the head pirate not have either killed Theodosia or attempted to ransom her, as the daughter of a famous man and the wife of the wealthy governor of South Carolina? And why did she never make any attempt to reach the mainland and get a message to her husband or father?). Again, great concept, but, for me anyway, ultimately not satisfying.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a huge fan of Parker's. Love his short stories and Prairie Fever is one of my favorite novels. So I was eager to read this earlier novel. Like fine wine, you have to let Parker's prose grow on you. It takes time to adjust to his original phrasing and way of coming at a scene sideways.

Parker digs deep into his imagination to recreate his own theory on the disappearance of Theodosia Burr Allston, who disappeared on a voyage to visit her father, Aaron Burr. Here is a link to her story:

https://www.historicmysteries.com/the...

But what I appreciated, as I always do when reading his work, is that the natural setting is always front and center and guides his characters and their motivations and travails. Set mainly on the desolate, almost deserted island of Yaupon in the 1970s, off the coast of North Carolina, an island that "stayed put but was always leaving."

The story weaves back and forth between Theo and these last 3 inhabitants, who turn out to be direct descendants. This is a psychological historical novel, and Parker magically works to create the ties over generations, both white and African American. No totally likeable heroes in this one. All wonderously flawed. Some examples of his beautiful prose:

"He'd never got lost in a vision of him twirling sweet Sarah in a waterspout of diamonds because evenings he'd sit on his porch and stare out across the marsh to where night came rolling blue-black and final over the sound and he'd say no thank you to some [disco] ball, we got stars."

"Maggie needed tiny shells stuck to her skin when she got undressed for bed. She needed tiny shells to rain down on the floorboards nights when she undressed, little bedtime chimes."

Like his other books, this one will stay with me awhile.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this book. I read raving reviews of it everywhere. NPR sealed the deal for me, so I requested it from the library.

A friend just asked me, "What are you reading?" So, I said, "Ugh. I hate to even tell you. I'm having a love hate relationship with a book." Which of course, piqued her interest even more.

I read most of this book in one sitting. And then it sat for a day or two. It didn't call to me and I honestly felt only obligated to finish it because I had read well past my "read 50 pages and chuck it if you don't like it" rule.

I hate to pan a book. Really I do. I don't really think that book reviews are ever really fair. Everyone approaches a book differently with varied backgrounds. Everyone comes to a book in a unique mood and life situation that affects how the books is perceived.

That said, I didn't like any of the characters or the depth of the story. It felt like a rough draft that could have used more development. It was jerky and slightly off in some areas.

Would I pick it again over all the other fabulous reads I have on my list this summer? Probably not.

[Tracy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm giving this book only 2 stars because I found the story kind of boring. It was so difficult to figure out what was happening in the plot. The story switched between two time periods, but this wasn't very obvious in the beginning. I didn't really get to know the characters or frankly care about any of them.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I see many reviewers did not like this book because it was *boring* to them. It is not a book of action. It primarily takes place inside the heads ( and hearts) of the main characters. I found it lovely, thoughtful, dream-like and satisfying.

[Louise · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story has a lot of atmosphere, and Michael Parker writes well.
The way their family history affects the sisters and their relationship with Woodrow is interesting.

There a few things that weighed down a little for me:

The narrative gets a little confusing at times, because several characters in the past and present have the same names.
and
(possible mini spoiler alert!)



As another reviewer here wrote, there are two questions about the story of the "past Theodesia", that bug me, and remain unanswered;
1. why would the head pirate Daniels not try to get a ransom for Theodosia - since both her father and husband are rich and have influence, and
2. why exactly doesn't she even once try to get in touch with her beloved father or her husband the govenor? As a reader I needed to understand, why she didn't want to return to her former life of luxury, wealth, comfort and security ( she calls it "the priceless past she'd kept so vigilantly alive" page 155), but instead chose a poor, hard, trying life, on the island with little or no redeeming qualities, and no love or friendship to speak of in the first long while.

The two sisters living in the present - it would have been nice if their lives weren't so very sad and depressing, that got me down a little.

[Carl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointed after reading reviews--boo to NPR.
Parallel stories 150 years apart, in the same place, same families, similar white/black relations. Hardly a new narrative device, necessary to avoid climax/denouement of one story way ahead of the other, if you're going chronologically.
No matter, the main problem is the modern story, which took up ? 2/3 of the book (felt like a lot more). It was boring and predictable, none of the characters were well developed or particularly interesting, although one had to feel for the modern (well 60's or whenever it was) black man's dilemma.
The earlier story, an imagined survival of Aaron Burr's daughter, was much more interesting and appealing, but her story was too brief, and too much was left untold/unresolved.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Torn between 2 and 3 stars for this one. I loved the setting, the sense of place, (there are some gorgeous descriptions in the book) and the tension in the relationships between people and nature, in a place where the landscape and elements can be both comforting & fierce. I also liked the author's examination of how the place shaped the people that lived there, their relationships to each other, and the issue of what bonds people (sometimes inexplicably) together, but also might hold them back. However, I never really connected with any of the characters and felt detached from their stories--the characters kept drawing my focus more out to the issues the novel examined, rather than into their lives in the way I was hoping to be.

[Lisa Hope · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Watery Places of the World is a beautiful, well characterized novel with a strong sense of place and purpose. If a classic is a book that "has something to say and says it well," then this book has those earmarks. The author's reflections on love, loss, and what draws people to one another and to a place are perceptive and wonderfully wrought. At first, I struggled a bit to hit my stride with the author's style. For some reason I found the syntax difficult to wrap my feeble mind around. However, the style is perfectly pitched to the rhythm of coastal speech, tad Elizabethan. I'll wager the problem was fatigue on my part and had nothing to do with the writing. The twin story lines and the characters are engrossing and smack of hard truth.

One plot line deals with the fate of Theodosia Burr Alston, Aaron Burr's loyal daughter and the socialite wife of the South Carolina's governor. Parker plays with a simple historical thread here; shortly after Burr's return to the United States, his daughter sails north to see him but is lost at sea. There have been a number of conjectures concerning Theo's disappearance, some leaning towards the romantic, others rather straight-forward. Like Virginia Dare, an earlier heroine of American history who went missing in coastal Carolina, there really is not much to go on as to what really happened to her, thus leaving an imaginative writer plenty room in which to allow his imagination to roam. Parker uses one of these theories to create a woman who must totally refit herself to survive her vastly different new life on the Outer Banks of North Carolina's Nag's Head and Yaupon Island. The second strand is set on Yaupon Island in the 1970s. The island which had seen its heyday during the time that Theo Burr Alston lived there is now inhabited only by three people; Theodosia's descendants, sisters Maggie and Theo Whaley and a black gentleman who is mysteriously tied to the cantankerous, elderly sisters by a bond which bemuses and annoys his family, and at times, himself.

[Michelle H · Rating 1 out of 5]

BORING. I could have loved this one. It includes a real-life unresolved mystery involving the disappearance of Aaron Burr's adult daughter, enough isolation on a remote island and plentiful reasons for the main character NOT to return to her former life which explains why her story remains a mystery today(gotta keep the historical fiction about real life figures plausible!), and the perfect amount of down home references to Eastern North Carolina places and people to make me remember my years spent there fondly.

Spoilers below...

Unfortunately, the two separate plot arcs were BORING. While I finished this rather spare novel in just over a day, I kept falling asleep while reading it! The intertwined stories of Theodosia Burr Alton and her descendants never seemed important enough to drive the novel anywhere compelling. Her reason for not being killed by her pirate captor (because she can talk to a painting???), ridiculous. Her island husband just disappearing either because he ditched her or got killed by the pirate...and we're not going to find out, lazy writing trick. Her great-great-greats never leaving the island, because...they're attached, not well adjusted, and...well, who cares? Her former slave/servant's descendants and her people sticking together through thick and thin in the future...great, it's been done, so what? A death scandal with no real scandal? I'm over it.

[Fredsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. The writing was beautiful throughout, and the stories intertwined in the novel were as individual and mysterious as the photograph on the cover. The islands off of North Carolina, the sand, the scrub, and the sea were the strongest characters. Even though Theodosia Burr, lost at sea according to history, offers a fiery opening when she is the only survivor of a ship run aground by pirates, the steady pulse of the tides and the changing forces of the wind really control the book. The two plots take place 150 years apart, with the original Theo Burr (daughter of Aaron Burr and wife of the Governor of South Carolina), the man Whaley who rescues her a few times, and eventually the freed slave Hezekiah... and then with the great-great-great granddaughters of Ms. Burr & Whaley plus Woodrow, the only other person living on the island. This looks like a lot of stuff, but it sort of unrolls slowly. It took me a little while to get used to the way the characters spoke and thought, but then everything clicked and I accepted everything up until the end. I confess to a bit of hesitation about the end. I should read the book again, in light of the end, and see how it does all fall together. I did not particularly like either of the two sisters but I didn't have to. I had the island, just like they did and, for a change, I had the sea.

[Shruti morethanmylupus · Rating 2 out of 5]

The relationship between the sisters and Woodard - and how it's affected by their history was interesting. Beyond that, the book was more boring than I expected given the reviews. It switches between 2 time periods, which would have helped except that some of the characters have the same names so it gets confusing trying to remember which time period the narrative is currently in.

The premise was interesting: Theodosia Burr Alston is thought to have died in a shipwreck somewhere off the North Carolina Coast. She was the daughter of Aaron Burr who tried to create the empire of Mexico. He also dueled with and killed Alexander Hamilton. The premise of the novel was that Theodosia didn't in fact die. Instead, she ended up living with a hermit ex-pirate on a small island where her descendants still live. The story alternates between her life and her descendants in the 1970s.

It should have worked, but it just didn't hold my attention. I didn't feel any connection with any of the characters. I think I would have liked to hear more about Theodosia, honestly. Especially because parts of Parker's premise didn't make sense to me. Why didn't she try to escape for one thing? I know the pirate was now a hermit, but why didn't he try to ransom her given how famous her father was and that she was married to the governor of South Carolina?

[Dawn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't think I've ever given one star before but that is mostly because if I'm not enjoying a book I stop reading it. However, I spent the first 100 pages deciding whether to move on to something else and then figured I might as well finish it. I was hoping that something would happen that would build up some kind of excitement. I found the book boring and I never really connected with the characters. It was all so dreary. There were a few chapters that kept a attention but they didn't last long. I was straining to finish it and glad to see it end.

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am about 50 pages shy of actually finishing this, but I believe I am done. The novel was beautifully written,and the characters vividly rendered, but events unfolded too slowly to keep me engaged.

On a positive note: the cover of this book is gorgeous.

[Travis Washburn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the premise, the characters, and certainly the setting, but the narrative style was so hard to read. Long, run on,awkward, sentences. I get what the author was doing with that, but I just never could develop a reading groove for this book and found myself pleased to get to the end.

[Meredith · Rating 2 out of 5]

The historical sections of the book were really good. A focus just on that would have made this a much better book overall.

[Debbie Leonard · Rating 1 out of 5]

I actually didn’t finish it. I found the characters very unlikable and the story line too unbelievable.

[Yasmin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently finished The Watery Part of the World...I initially picked up this book because of the synopsis...three folks left behind on an island off the coast of North Carolina...two elderly, white sisters and an elderly black gentlemen. Everyone else had either relocated (the living was hard--heavy, ravaging storms with hard rain and winds would do that to most anybody as well as the isolation of being cut off from the mainland and dare I say civilization) or died. I wanted to know what type of folks would stay behind in a town with only three people, what connected these individuals and what were the dynamics like. My questions were answered...but painstakingly so. Watery Park of the World was a very descriptive, detailed read and written on at least a 12th grade, college level. Which is fine if everyone who chooses to read this book has an extensive vocabulary and dare I say some college. I did and even have a graduate degree to boot...but sometimes simple is better...I don't need a complicated story when a simpler version works just fine. Too often I felt like Parker was writing for an MFA program rather than for me the reader...sometimes the writing wasn't very clear and I found myself rereading sections twice or referring to prior sections because I wasn't sure of what point he was trying to make. After awhile I just didn't care as I was really for the story to be over so that I could move on to something that was move engaging and attention grabbing. Then again maybe I just need to get accustomed to his writing style because he is a seasoned author with apparently lots of fans and accolades...maybe just maybe I'll become one of them if I read some of his earlier works. I think his storytelling and pacing have to grow on you...and I'm not quite there yet.

[Sharon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for the "Read the States" Challenge for: North Carolina

Apparently I have 0 reading comprehension because I thought this was only about Theodosia Burr.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thoroughly nasty take on the lot of women and the inability of human-kind to care for one another .

A book about selfishness and harm that masquerades as a world where those things do not come from (or amount to) evil just individual moral failures ?

When an author attempts a story focused on the narrative perspective of another race or gender for his protagonists he risks introducing a layer of artificiality or dramatic lie to his story.

This author slips on the cloak of the other and writes out a story where women are not just the victims of some unavoidable original sin but also it's perpetrators generation after generation .

His primary black characters are granted a perverse awareness of their plight but afforded no solace here on earth .

Seems as though the act of imagining the perspective of a woman is so hateful to him that he makes their 'sins' and punishments unavoidable and unforgivable .

one question presented here is whether brutal landscapes create selfish or self-reliant people - another question might be whether writing about brutal landscapes and events justifies the self righteous writing that comes from peopling such a world with women such as these ?

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Parker should be applauded for his originality and creativity. His unique and beautifully written novel, The Watery Part of the World, is based upon two little known historical facts. The first, the 1813 disappearance of Theodosia Burr, the daughter of vice president Aaron Burr, while en route to New York from South Carolina via schooner; and the second the true story from 1970 of last residents , of a small barrier island off the coast of North Carolina, two elderly white women and their African American caretaker. Combining pirates and slaves, madness and devotion, the civilized and the uncivilized, The Watery Part of the World is a tale of love and its bounds. While this is not your typical beach read it resonates with a true sense of place, in this case the untamable tiny barrier island off the Carolina coast. Parker explores the larger themes of home and home’s undeniable pull, as well as our devotion to those we love, no matter how difficult and trying they may be. Unforgettable characters and beautiful prose make this an amazing read, as well as a tribute to the bonds of family and community. The Watery Part of the World is a true literary feast.

[Laura Ballance · Rating 3 out of 5]

Theodosia Burr Alston disappeared mysteriously in 1812. There are theories that her ship was lured to its demise by evil Outer Bankers, who benefited from causing ships to wreck. My Hatteras Grandmother told me once that they would get excited when ships wrecked because it meant they would find useful things on the beach, like wood that could be used to build houses and boats, as well as food. She mentioned bananas. Though I doubt Theodosia had any on her boat.
This book (which does not claim to be historical!) expands on one theory of her disappearance, and she ends up on "Yaupon Island" (which from what I can tell is Portsmouth Island). The rest of the book is about some of her descendants, two sisters, who are the last two white people to live on the island after everyone moves away, as well as one black man and his wife who stay and look after them. Pretty much like the history of Portsmouth Island, except I think those women were not sisters. Their names are all different too.
The book is entertaining, but I think every woman in it is out of her mind, which is kind of a turn off for me.

[Kelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, I must say that I received this book for free through a goodreads give away. So, I was excited for the book to arrive. The setting of coastal North Carolina is what initially drew me to this book-since I love the North Carolina coast. But, it took me three tries to get past the first chapter of the book and to continue reading. I feel like the idea of the book is a good one but the execution of actually interweaving these two stories is inconsistent. I found both the beginning and the end rough and awkward, but the middle of the book completely drew me in. I felt like the ending was disappointing after what was created and sustained throiugh the middle of the book. It may have been an attempt to keep a mysterious feeling to the resolution - or lack there of but it felt more like an easy way to extricate the characters from where they were in the plot and to end he story.

[Trina · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Watery Part of the World is an exquisitely written novel of home -- the home in this case is the isolated islands of the Outer Banks of the North Carolina coast. Although there is a plot that moves the story along, I felt most attached to the characters' longing for this watery sandy place. The very individual characters beautifully real with faults and eccentricities, and although all the characters are somewhat enigmatic, I found myself rooting for each one. There is mystery in this novel -- the unknowable other person, a place profoundly changed that will never be seen again, and above all the indeterminate nature of life itself. I am inspired by this loving but complex view of life and landscape.

[Terry Perrel · Rating 5 out of 5]

To me, The Watery Part of the World, set on North Carolina's Outer Banks, is the perfect book. I could go on and on with praise for Parker’s well-drawn characters and the way that setting serves as one, too; the lyricism and pacing of his lines to conjure the torrent of the rain and winds, of human emotions, the flatness of them, too; and the depths to which the story mines the contrariness and secrets of the heart and mind, but I’ll stop here because you best read this novel about Aaron Burr's long-lost daughter and the last of her descendants to see what I mean.

But I must go on to say that this is my favorite novel since the 2003 publication of The Known World by Edward P. Jones, and I believe that Parker, like Jones, is one of best writers in this country.

[Lisa Mcbroom · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was so "let down"! As a teen I had an obsession over mysterious vanishings and of course read everything on Theodosia Burr. I was really looking forward to reading this. This is the book in a nutshell... The author is saying to readers " I have a degree in creative writing.... lets see how many "big words" I can use.... let's see how superficial I can be. Now I myself am a fan of the "stream of conscienous" movement and love lyrical writing but don't waste your time! The reason this rates one star I must admit the author does a great job of describing the coast....I didn't even complete it!

[Infosifter]

I'm giving up on this one. In order to enjoy a book I almost always need to like at least one character fairly well, and I either dislike or don't understand everyone in the story. The negative reviews here give me the impression that it's not going to get any better, so I'm giving my self permission to put it down

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I truly enjoyed this beautifully written book. The two stories (those of 19th-century Theodosia and 20th-century sisters) weren't exactly interwoven well to me, but I liked reading about the lives of the cast of memorable characters living in a unique place and in fascinating circumstances. I agree with Trina that the characters' sense of attachment to place was beautifully conveyed. And I thought that the play of personalities and emotions -- regret, shame, love, racial concerns -- made for a melancholy yet beautiful reflection on love, personal fears, and relationships.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first goodreads giveaways win. This book was really well written. However, I was under the impression that it was going to be historical fiction and it was really more literary fiction. There were parts of this I really loved, but the story wasn't cohesive and was confusing at times. Also, the whole "aaron burr" aspect, which was what initially attracted me to the book was an inconsequential plot point.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't finish.