When brutish miner Hugo Mitchum is found murdered on the frozen shore of a North Country lake, the local officials and town gossips of Beau Caelais are quick to blame Marietta Abernathy, outspoken environmental activist and angry, witchy recluse. But Marietta herself has disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
Living on an isolated island with her father, Marietta’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Lena, begins sifting through her mother’s journals and collected oddities in an attempt to find her. While her father’s grief threatens to consume him and her adoptive aunt Bea reckons with guilt and acceptance, it is the haunting town outcast Ellis Olsen who might have the most to lose if Lena fails to find her mother.
A Nordic eco-noir shot through with magical realism, Things We Found When the Water Went Down examines power, identity, and myth in a story that asks us to explore what it means to heal—or not—after violence. This debut novel by Tegan Nia Swanson will be out in December of 2022. Catapult Press provided an early galley for review.
The cover of this book immediately jumped out to me. The endless water and waves illuminated by the full moon is entrancing. This heralded something different, and indeed Swanson's book is just that. The narrative structure is a mix of fiction, poetry and end-noted comments that one might find in nonfiction. It is a very different kind of read indeed. Very ethereal and symbolic.
The subject matter of domestic violence is a serious one. Books relating to this can get dark and graphic. Swanson's way of addressing it comes across, to me, as a bit more removed and indirect. I couldn't help but compare it to David Lynch's Twin Peaks is some regards. Both have a stylistic way about them. Which, in turn, could mean that not every reader will necessarily connect to this story's approach.
As a big music fan, the soundtrack at the end was a very nice touch. Time to pull together a playlist to see how this music fits the tale.
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