Midway through the book i was keen to accord the book credit as a survivalist’s road- trip. That heading lost its mantra as coping mechanism overtook the shock and horror of watching your world become a watery quagmire leading to town buildings and amenities disappearing into sink-holes at the most inconvenient times.
Sarah Walker’s THE WATER TAKES shows the writer’s concepts of anxiety, the absurdities of how we deal with them, but also the intimacy of private versus public feelings. She has a fascination with the body and the ways in which it escapes our control, as well as how apprehension of imminent disaster impacts our sense of the present.
This is a work that is highly imaginative, creating a compulsive page-turner with a propulsion of a thriller that’s full of revelation and literary surprises, carrying its humanity in a sense that’s neither sentimental or cliched.
Sarah takes us on an epic journey both intimate but ultimately revealing as a testament to loss and grief. The book’s publicity spins the prose as ‘pulling tighter than a garrot wire’ while her characters are populated with depths of tenderness that reveal how emotions and fears coexist for good reason. She trawls the deep pools of collective anxieties turning this uniquely Australian odyssey into a something that is both heartfelt whilst at the same time being horrific.
THE WATER TAKES is beautifully written with a sharp blend of humour to offset the looming menace reminding us that that connection is our saving grace when catastrophe hits. I love dystopian fiction and this is an impressive debut. Walker has written a disquieting account cataloguing grief and fortitude in a drowning world owning the atmospheric and utterly harrowing plot.
From a beguiling beginning about sink-holes and small towns the novel grips in a visceral hold crafting a survival manual within a heartfelt story of care and connection. The magnetic attraction to this narrative that’s haunting and terrifying, is what would you do responding to a world that’s drowning and sinking.
Pam, widowed and hiding from the world behind a smarmy sense of humour is in declining health promoting her fear of ending up like her mother and dying alone, but her most pressing concern is complaining to the council about her waterlogged garden. She shuns the people in her town while shaming herself for letting herself get to this stage in life by letting go. Life always throws a wrench, or in this case, a lifeline, in the shape of a neighbour’s coquettish ten-year old who is far wiser than her age suggests.
Charlotte, is foisted upon her which has the consequence of a tentative friendship that eventually cracks Pam’s hard exterior. The puddle in the garden becomes a pool which turns into a sink holes, creating existential drama for the two. As no help comes and communication breaks down Pam and Charlotte can secure shelter in situ for so long before necessity forces them to navigate a catastrophically altered world.
Sarah Walker is a Melbourne-based writer, photographer and artist who admits to being obsessed with apocalyptic ‘preppers’, not the stockpilers of tinned beans and medical kits, but the the essential skills necessary for disaster scenarios, building caring relationships with neighbours and learning to grow food while developing social bonds. The tension between individualism and community is the resilience needed when things go awry and the help that one counts on doesn’t materialise.
The book’s success is grounded by staking the unlikely bond between a stubborn, selfish, maturing woman and a forthright kid with strengths and can do traits well beyond her age. Its pull lies in its sense of humanity and trust that’s devoid of sentiment while exploring real-world anxieties about isolation, fear of connection, or loss of it, while surviving in an environmental collapse.
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