The Weight of Water is a haunting novel by Anita Shreve. Alternately telling the story of Jean, a photographer, and her family who are on an assignment in the Isles of Shoals off of the coast of Maine, and of the Christensen family from Norway, who eventually emigrated to the United States in the late 1800s. This novel is like two books in one, both stories grabbing hold of the reader until their emotional conclusions. Both stories asking the question, "If you take a woman and push her to the edge, how will she behave?"
The Christensen family (and the Hontvedt family) story ends in a brutal double murder. Jean's assignment is to photograph the island where this murder took place for a magazine article. She and her husband Thomas and their daughter, along with Thomas' brother and his girlfriend set sail together for the island of Smuttynose. As Jean immerses herself in the double murder, she herself begins to tread water emotionally and begins to believe that her husband is having an affair. She examines her marriage and finds that maybe it isn't on solid ground, maybe it never was. Her jealousy begins to cloud her judgement, and that leads to her ultimate downfall, pushing her to her limits, much like her counterparts in the case of the Smuttynose murders.
The author seamlessly weaves these two stories together. Literally from paragraph to paragraph the reader is shifted between these two very different centuries. The harsh reality of life on Smuttynose in the 1860s and 70s to the reality of Jean's current familial struggles. It is not an uplifting book, it is one in which you know all along that there is going to be a horrible conclusion. It is a powerful work, one that begs the question, how far would you go? And how would you ever recover from starting off a series of events that you then have no control over? All of the characters are not necessarily likable, the setting is harsh, but this is a thought provoking book and a tale that will stay with the reader.
Happy Reading!
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