Bodies of Water

I had a client meeting in the city, cause to board a train, an excuse to stop the madness and huddle with a book.

I chose THREE VIEWS OF CRYSTAL WATER, by Katherine Govier (author of the previously mentioned CREATION). I sunk straight in. I had that physical response I often get to books that are immaculately conceived and written. The slight shiver before the stillness sets in. The dulled hammering of the heart. The slow uncranking of the muscles about the jaw.

The therapeutics of a book upon a lap.

Why don't more people know about THREE VIEWS? Why isn't Govier a household name? How much talent bucks out there, in the world beyond, just waiting for more of us to notice?

On the train two days ago, I got to notice. Today I implore you to notice, too.

A fraction, then, from Govier:

"Bodies of water, we call them. Fresh, salt, dead, alive, still, fast-moving, tidal, land-locked. I know little about those other bodies which span the world, but I can tell you that the sea I plumb is a trickster. Lashing at the black lava rocks, tasting of the myterious living things, shot with sunbeams or sunk in massive gloom, it is bitter to the nostrils and stinging to the lips. I've seen rock cliffs under water that trail air bubbles out of some crevice as if they were breathing."

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Creation

Does this happen to you? You fall in love with a book, you tell the world about the book, you put the book on your list of favorite books, and a few years on you're afraid to read that book again. Afraid it won't live up to the buzz you threaded through it. Afraid that it will somehow let you down.

I've been circling Katherine Govier's CREATION lately—a book I fell in love with back in 2002. I pulled every string I had at a certain magazine so that I could back it with a stellar review. I went down the street, to my friend, Jane, and said: You have to read this book. Embarrassed myself with enthusiasm, you might say, but that's how it is with me and some books.

In any case—two nights ago I dared myself to pull CREATION from the shelf and to read it as if I had never touched its (quite lovely) self before. No one was looking; no one cared; I could have changed my mind: I didn't. CREATION is the story of one particular season in the life of John James Audubon, and if that doesn't sound exciting to you, think of the book as a lesson in craft. As a lesson in how to write an historical novel that feels current and pressing, in how to tell the truth with a modicum of facts, in how to stoke up character and plot in a novel of ideas.

Consider it a lesson, conversely, in how to write about birds.

CREATION withstands the test of time. I love it when that happens.

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