The Weight Of Water

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A murder of two women took place over 100 years ago on the island of Smutty Nose in the Isles of Shoals. Maren Hanvent moves to this very remote, sparse island with her fisherman husband. They are followed by her sister and brother with his wife, living lives full of hardship off the coast of Maine. How long have I been hankering to use a song from Ceremonials? Do you remember my demand polite suggestion that all authors must should listen to it on repeat and then write a book based on it solely to keep me happy? There are two stories intertwined here. There is a modern day story told in the first person by a photographer visiting the Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire. She is photographing the islands where a double murder took place in 1873 and is staying on a boat with her husband, her young daughter, her brother-in-law and his girlfriend and we see the often tetchy interaction between them in the close quarters. The second story is told in the first person by the only survivor of the nineteenth century double murder. This is in the form of a lost manuscript that the photographer finds during her research. Jean Janes is researching the Smuttynose Murders. Bringing along her husband and daughter, she charters her brother-in-law’s boat to take photos and get a feel for the island. She pulls letters, journals, and information about the trial which are archived in the historic city of Portsmouth. Jean steadily unravels the story leading up to the murders, as well as the suspecting infidelity of her husband.

As Jean is learning the story of these murders through the diary, she is also experiencing a crisis of her own. For this assignment, Jean along with her husband (Thomas) and daughter (Billie) decide to stay with Thomas' brother Rich and Rich's girlfriend Adaline on their small boat in Portsmouth Harbor. Jean begins to suspect that Thomas and Adaline may be involved in an affair and a palpable sense of tension ensues. The tension climaxes as a storm hits and the five are caught out on the open water in rough seas. You were so sad and you were so lonely and you were so insecure and you were OK with letting people In The Weight of Water, Anita Shreve tells a story of pain, jealousy, and passion. Her characters and their closest relationships--with siblings, with partners--are trapped in isolated and claustrophobic spaces. Shreve tells the story of the murders of two Norwegian immigrant women on Smuttynose Island off the coast of New Hampshire in the late 19th century. She explores the 19th Century events in the context of a contemporary photographer's trip to the island to capture the location for a magazine story about the killings. The photographer travels to the island in a small sailboat with her husband, daughter, brother-in-law and his girlfriend. In the course of her research for the photo-shoot, she happens upon a previously unknown document, a letter from the one woman in the family who survived the killings. Shreve alternates sections of this letter, which describes what led up to the murders and what happened on the night they occurred, with the main structure of the book which moves fluidly between the interactions among the family of the photographer and the details of the history of the murder as it was revealed in the trial. In this way, Shreve allows the painful unfolding of events in the two different eras to play out alongside one another.The story revolves around Kasienka and her mother who move into the city where there Dad escaped (escaped doesn't sound appropriate but oh well) It is her tale of drama that comes with moving into a new school, falling for a guy who doesn't treat her bad and her search for her dad. Rachel and Talia Fontenot are sisters born into brutal, rural poverty in southeastern Louisiana in the 1960s. Raised by relatives, they become fiercely devoted to one another until tragic circumstances intervene. They are separated, Talia disappearing into a life of drugs and petty crime, Rachel fleeing to New Orleans. Years later, Rachel is living in New Orleans and married to the CEO of the Southeast’s largest provider of long-term healthcare. She lives what appears to be a perfect life, yet she struggles with anxiety, prescription drug abuse, and grief. I need to finally brush off my prejudice against books that are written in verse. Every single time I raise a sceptical eyebrow in their direction - completely unable to believe that this is anything more than just lazy storytelling - and every single time I find myself impressed. The Weight of Water was no exception. This is a delightful, if somewhat heartbreaking, little story that took me just over an hour to read. And if Kasienka’s ability to conquer her fears wasn’t good enough for you, Ms Crossan gives us an incredibly adorable love interest too! The Weight of Water is a book entirely written in poetry. You may think that this is boring, but actually it is one of my favourite books. The Weight of Water helps you understand how refugees feel and how hard it can be a foreigner in a strange country.

In creating The Weight of Water, Shreve carefully wove the historical story with the fictional one, though, she maintains "the heart of the book has almost nothing to do with the facts." Rather, she used the historical record as a springboard for a larger story that explores the consequences of pushing a woman to the edge. Shreve says she was not the first to question the outcome of the murder trial, but she found it "a very hard book to write" because ultimately she intended for the reader to have sympathy for the women of Smuttynose. 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-a fit of passion that resulted in the deaths of two women-Jean herself becomes caught in the grip of an intense emotion.If we had gone to school together I bet we’d be the best of friends and we’d stay up all night, swapping stories and drinking pop and being giddy. Although I have read only two of Crossan's books. It's safe to say I love her. I read One last year and it actually made me cry and love it so bad, it jumped onto my top #5 spots. Although it has been replaced, but nevermind that. Sarah Crossan knows how to make you feel. She knows how to squeeze your heart and make you use up a whole box of tissues. It is with this diary that the second voice is heard. The diary is written long after the events on Smuttynose, after Maren has returned to Norway and is in the final days of her life. The diary recounts the history of Maren; her marriage and relocation to Smuttynose; the struggles of her new life and her recounting of the events the night of the murders. The diary gives you a real feel for Maren as an individual and especially what life must have been like for a lonely, foreign fisherman's wife on such a desolate island. In March 1873, two Norwegian-born women who lived on the desolate Smuttynose Island, one of the Isles of Shoals off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire, were brutally murdered. Maren Hontvedt, a sister of one of the victims, survived by hiding in a sea cave until dawn. The murdered women were her older sister Karen Christensen and Anethe Christensen, their sister-in-law. A man named Louis Wagner was tried and hanged for their murders, mostly on circumstantial evidence. His conviction has been argued about, as some people think he could not have done it. The plot is a dual timeline that parallels one another. The first timeline is modern day with a photographer and her famous yet emotionally damaged poet husband and young child going on a boat trip with her brother-in-law and his newish girlfriend. She is using the opportunity to work on a photo assignment of a historical double murder that took place centuries ago. During the trip, she notices the closeness developing between her husband and the girlfriend. The second timeline is the events leading up to the double murder. This book was very hard to put down and I was absorbed into the story from the get go.