The Sweetness of Water (Oprah's Book Club)

by Nathan Harris Narrated by William DeMeritt

Overview

An Instant New York Times bestseller / An Oprah's Book Club Pick

In the spirit of The Known World and The Underground Railroad, an award-winning “miraculous debut” (Washington Post) about the unlikely bond between two freedmen who are brothers and the Georgia farmer whose alliance will alter their lives, and his, forever

In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry-freed by the Emancipation Proclamation-seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm, hoping through an unexpected friendship to stanch their grief. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys.

Parallel to their story runs a forbidden romance between two Confederate soldiers. The young men, recently returned from the war to the town of Old Ox, hold their trysts in the woods. But when their secret is discovered, the resulting chaos, including a murder, unleashes convulsive repercussions on the entire community. In the aftermath of so much turmoil, it is Isabelle who emerges as an unlikely leader, proffering a healing vision for the land and for the newly free citizens of Old Ox.

With candor and sympathy, debut novelist Nathan Harris creates an unforgettable cast of characters, depicting Georgia in the violent crucible of Reconstruction. Equal parts beauty and terror, as gripping as it is moving, The Sweetness of Water is an epic whose grandeur locates humanity and love amid the most harrowing circumstances.

One of President Obama's Favorite Books of 2021

Winner of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence

Winner of the Willie Morris Award for*Southern Fiction

Winner of the Writers' League of Texas Book Award for Fiction

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize

Shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize

Shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award

Longlisted for the 2022 Carnegie Medal for Excellence

Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

Longlisted for the Crook's Corner Book Prize

A Best Book of the Year: Oprah Daily, NPR, Washington Post, Time, Boston Globe, Smithsonian, Chicago Public Library, BookBrowse, and the Oregonian

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

A July 2021 Indie Next Pick

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Haunting and powerful… explores the deep and lasting trauma caused by systemic oppression, violence and abuse of White people against Black people as well as the danger of naive White allies, especially those unwilling to put themselves at risk… a riveting page-turner, packed with tension that continually ratchets up… Harris masterfully balances the intimate details of each character with the big picture ideas about the legacy of slavery.”—Stuart Miller, Orange County Register

“An engaging and deep exploration of individuality and the meaning of freedom… an impressive debut novel that explores the raw trauma of social change and a collective of human lives… the story immerses the reader in a trying period of history—the beginnings of Reconstruction in the American South—where the loss of a way of life, however judged, parallels the sense of loss of the human characters. With its rich characterization and exquisite prose, The Sweetness of Water shows us that history and its inhabitants are incapable of forgetting a disturbing past but nonetheless capable of moving on.”—Don J. Rath, Southern Review of Books

“I rejoice in the confidence and artistry of THE SWEETNESS OF WATER. Nathan Harris’ photo may be a Dorian Gray-like portrait, belying his actual age, as he looks far too young and innocent to have written such a beautiful, mature and heart-wrenching novel the first time out… The book reads like a ready-made classic. It raises so many conversations that are vital to today’s world—sexuality, race, the power and meaning of freedom, the possibilities created by love, the leftovers of grief. Nathan Harris gives us a reason to buckle down even harder to ensure that the battles of those who came before us are not wasted. THE SWEETNESS OF WATER is a triumphant new voice that takes on ages-old but oh-so-relevant topics.”—Jana Siciliano, Bookreporter

"Harris’ narrative demonstrates that even in the most harrowing situations, a glimmer of hope can be unearthed, and that, despite mankind’s deep divisions and differences, our shared humanity can’t be denied."—Karin Gillespie, Augusta Chronicle

“An emotional and humane story and a surprising page turner full of twists and turns. The period the book covers and the issues the book raises feel strikingly resonant right now.”—Carole V. Bell, The Grio

“The tenderness in Harris’s work is shown on every page with his thoughtful plotting and prose. The story weaves with a romance between two soldiers to effectively highlight the ramifications the war took on their minds, bodies, and souls.”—Debutiful (10 Books You Should Read in August)

Booklist (starred review)

Lucid prose and vivid characterization illustrate a community at war with itself, poisoned by pride and mired in racial and sexual bigotry.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestsell Richard Russo

What a gifted, assured writer Nathan Harris is. He does what all novelists are supposed to do—give birth to vivid characters, people worth caring about, and then get out of their way. The result is better than any debut novel has a right to be. With The Sweetness of Water, Harris has, in a sense, unwritten Gone With the Wind, detonating its phony romanticism, its unearned sympathies, its wretched racism.

NPR

A historical page-turner about social friction so powerful it ignites a whole town . . . The novel’s questions feel urgent . . . Like a fictional companion to Clint Smith’s history, How the Word Is Passed, The Sweetness of Water joins the national conversation on race and reckoning with history . . . Nathan Harris makes those extraordinary, still-contested times comprehensible through immersive, incredibly humane storytelling about the lives of ordinary people . . . Hope is the driving force in The Sweetness of Water . . . Harris spins an increasingly complex tale about the postwar South, and he tells it in a humane and intimate way, by exploring interpersonal relationships of all kinds in and around this rural Georgia town. . . And even though the story focuses on hope and unexpected kinship, it doesn't diminish the horrors of slavery or the struggle in its wake. The events of the brothers’ former lives are never far from memory—whipping, beating, disfiguring physical abuse, family separation, near starvation, dehumanization. None of that is denied. None of it is minimized. But like the brothers, Harris tries to train the focus elsewhere for a time. As an act of pure storytelling, The Sweetness of Water soars . . . The novel is a riveting drama-filled exploration of a fracture and a healing . . . The Sweetness of Water leaves a lasting and multifaceted impression: It’s warm and absorbing, thought-provoking and humane.

AudioFile

DeMeritt’s vibrant and convincing portrayals of a wide cast of memorable local residents will linger in listeners’ minds…A rewarding listen.”

Wall Street Journal

Beautiful…This book is profound.”

New York Journal of Books

[A] compelling look into the Civil War era.”

The Guardian Alex Preston

A fine, lyrical novel, impressive at the level of the sentence, and in its complex interweaving of the grand and the intimate, of the personal and political.

NBC New York Bill Goldstein

Rich prose and such a beautifully imagined time and place… Amazing book by any account and that it’s a first novel makes it even more to be treasured.

NPR “Here & Now” Petra Mayer

This is a debut novel, but the writing is so strong and gorgeous and assured, and the characters have so many layers to them, you'll keep reading just to see what's revealed next.

Washington Post

Evokes…the range of responses from Black and White Americans contending with a revolutionary ideal of personhood.”

Washington Post Ron Charles

Harris’s debut novel is remarkable; that he’s only 29 is miraculous. His prose is burnished with an antique patina that evokes the mid-19th century. And he explores this liminal moment in our history with extraordinary sensitivity to the range of responses from Black and White Americans contending with a revolutionary ideal of personhood... All of this is drawn with gorgeous fidelity to these cautious characters, struggling to remake the world, or at least this little patch of it... Harris stacks the timbers of this plot deliberately, and the moment a spark alights, the whole structure begins to burn hot... What’s most impressive about Harris’s novel is how he attends to the lives of these peculiar people while capturing the tectonic tensions at play in the American South.

Oprah Daily

Takes us back in time and helps us to feel we are right there with Prentiss and Landry as they get their first taste of freedom."

BookPage (starred audio review)

An actor in full control of his range…DeMeritt narrates with such skill that the listener can envision some of the characters’ faces just by the way their voices sound.”

author of Remember Me Like This Bret Anthony Johnston

The book’s unforgettable gift is Nathan Harris’s unique voice and breathtaking vision.”

Oprah Daily Oprah Winfrey

As I read this masterful novel I kept thinking—this young 29-year-old is a first-time author, so how did he do this?... As the best writers can do, Nathan takes us back in time, and helps us to feel we are right there with Prentiss and Landry as they get their first taste of freedom. I rooted for them, and feared for them too.

Booker Prize committee

This debut novel astonished us as much for its wise, lyrical voice as for its dense realization of a fictional small town in the American South at a rarely written-about moment, the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. We were incredibly impressed by the way it probes themes of trans-historical importance—about race, sexuality, violence, and grief—through meticulously-drawn characters and a patient examination of their relationships.

Wall Street Journal Jenna Bush Hager

Beautiful... An instant classic... This book is profound.

Texas Monthly Daniel Peña

An extraordinary debut novel . . . Harris expertly introduces explosive plot twists across parallel threads . . . There’s an elegant interplay among all facets of the narrative that at once raises the stakes for all the characters while gesturing toward a larger world outside Old Ox. The overall effect is a dazzling world-building that makes the relatively compact novel feel much larger . . . Harris manages to weave emotion into the smallest of moments . . . The novel asks us to consider white-supremacist ideology not as a uniquely Southern phenomenon, but as an uncomfortable truth and feature of the entire American endeavor, especially of the criminal justice system. Old Ox is in Georgia, but it is also everywhere today. Harris writes with the confidence and command of a seasoned master of the craft. And, of course, the magic of his sentences is in the details—everything is historically accurate and painstakingly researched, whether he’s describing the reprieve of a fresh tick mattress or the complexity of growing peanuts in Georgia soil. This novel is simply the best I have read in years.

Texas Monthly

This novel is simply the best I have read in years.”

Austin Chronicle

Richly imagined…deeply compassionate.”

Kirkus Reviews

2021-05-19
Though the Civil War is over when this novel opens, the threat of violence and the persistence of bigotry still loom over a Georgia town.

Somewhere between the Confederacy’s surrender at Appomattox and the beginning of Reconstruction, George Walker and his wife, Isabelle, live alone and emotionally estranged from each other on their family homestead just outside the village of Old Ox. They are mired in grief over the presumed death of their only son, Caleb, a missing Confederate soldier. At this low point in the Walkers’ lives, Prentiss and Landry, Black brothers freed from slavery, wander onto the couple’s barren land seeking little more than temporary shelter on their northbound trek in search of their mother, who was sold away from them in childhood. George reaches out to the two Black men for help in restoring his farmland with a peanut crop. In return, he offers to pay them whatever he can to help subsidize their journey. Warily, the brothers agree to George’s request, and eventually the three of them succeed in coaxing plants from the reluctant ground. Then one windy morning, Caleb returns home bearing an ugly facial scar and stories of his incarceration in a Union prison camp. What he doesn’t tell them is that he was beaten with a rifle butt by his captors because he’d deserted his own side and in the process, also deserted his wealthy boyhood friend and secret lover August Webler, now also a war veteran returned to Old Ox and soon to wed a local girl by a prearranged agreement. Despite his fury over Caleb’s betrayal and his impending marriage, August rekindles their romance, which sets off a series of tragic events involving murder, injustice, and, eventually, wholesale destruction. Throughout the tumult, all three members of the Walker family discover reserves of unexpected courage and resolve—and one can’t help believing that if most of the other characters carried within them the empathy and grace displayed by the author of this compelling postbellum saga, most of the awful things that happen to them and their immediate surroundings would have been avoided.

An impressive debut by a storyteller with bountiful insight and assurance.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173131416
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	06/15/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged

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