The Weight of Water: A Novel Tag - Author of Resistance and Strange Fits of Passion

Written with assurance and grace, plangent with foreboding and a taut sense of inexorability, The Weight Of Water is a powerfully compelling tale of passion, a provocative and disturbing meditation on the nature of love which takes us on an unforgettable journey through the furthest extremes of emotion."I wonder this: If you take a woman and push her to the edge, how will she behave?" "Enthralling... an object lesson in how to unravel a complicated plot" - Anita BrooknerThe question is posed by Jean, a photographer, who arrives on Smuttynose Island, off the coast of New Hampshire, to research a century-old crime. As she immerses herself in the details of the case - an outburst of passion that resulted in the deaths of two women - Jean herself enters precarious emotional territory. The suspicion that her husband is having an affair burgeons into jealousy and distrust, and ultimately propels Jean to the verge of actions she had not known herself capable of - actions with horrific consequences. "Compelling and beautifully written... the strength of the book lies in the exquisite handling of the metaphor of the sea - constant but shifting, all surface but all depth: and in particular the dangerous emotional currents that in both stories collide forcibly to make disaster inevitable." - Lynne Truss, The Times UKWith the skill of a master shipbuilder, Anita Shreve carefully fits her two stories together, tacking back and forth between the increasingly twisted murder mystery and the escalating tensions unleashed by the threat of a dangerous shipboard romance.

Journeying to Smuttynose Island, off the coast of New Hampshire, to shoot a photo essay about a century-old double murder, a photographer becomes absorbed by the crime and increasingly obsessed with jealousy over the idea that her husband is having an affair.

Publishers Weekly

In 1873, two women living on the Isles of Shoals, a lonely, windswept group of islands off the coast of New Hampshire, were brutally murdered. A third woman survived, cowering in a sea cave until dawn. More than a century later, Jean, a magazine photographer working on a photoessay about the murders, returns to the Isles with her husband, Thomas, and their five-year-old daughter, Billie, aboard a boat skippered by her brother-in-law, Rich, who has brought along his girlfriend, Adaline. As Jean becomes immersed in the details of the 19th-century murders, Thomas and Adaline find themselves drawn together-with potentially ruinous consequences. Shreve (Where or When; Resistance) perfectly captures the ubiquitous dampness of life on a sailboat, deftly evoking the way in which the weather comes to dictate all actions for those at sea. With the skill of a master shipbuilder, Shreve carefully fits her two stories together, tacking back and forth between the increasingly twisted murder mystery and the escalating tensions unleashed by the threat of a dangerous shipboard romance. Written with assurance and grace, plangent with foreboding and a taut sense of inexorability, The Weight of Water is a powerfully compelling tale of passion, a provocative and disturbing meditation on the nature of love.

On a small island off the New Hampshire coast in 1873, two women were brutally murdered by an unknown assailant. A third woman survived the attack, hiding in a sea cave until dawn. More than a century later, a photographer, Jean, comes to the island to shoot a photo-essay about the legendary crime. Immersing herself in accounts of the lives of the fishermen's wives who were its victims, she becomes obsessed with the barrenness of these women's days: the ardor-killing labor, the long stretches of loneliness, the maddening relentless winds that threatened to scour them off the rocky island. How could a marriage survive those privations? Was this misery connected to the killings? Jean's marriage is enduring heavy weather of its own. On the boat she has chartered for this project, she and her husband are falling apart. Their nights are full of drink and terrible silences, and Jean feels jealousy and distrust invading her life and her work. The forces that blasted the island a century earlier come alive inside Jean, bringing her to the verge of actions she never dreamed herself capable of - with no idea whether her choices will destroy all she has ever valued or bring her safely home. A tale of marital intrigue. The protagonist is a woman photographer sent to investigate an old murder on an island. She takes along her husband, the husband's brother and the brother's girlfriend. Problems arise when the husband develops an interest in the other woman. By the author of Resistance. Abstract: A tale of marital intrigue. The protagonist is a woman photographer sent to investigate an old murder on an island. She takes along her husband, the husband's brother and the brother's girlfriend. Problems arise when the husband develops an interest in the other woman. By the author of Resistance