(Allen & Unwin, $35)
With her new novel, Canadian author Dianne Warren attempts the hard task of telling a story set in a place where nothing much happens.
In the small sleepy town of Juliet, Saskatchewan, in Canada, characters go about their lives in a manner befitting the country stereotype – farmer Lee finds a stray horse in his front yard, drive-in owner Willard and his widowed sister-in-law Marian manage their business, and housewife Vicky takes her children to town.
Dianne’s experience as a playwright allows the reader to peel back the layers of Juliet, as individual stories cross paths to convey larger themes of life, death and change.
Dianne has a masterly way of handling the ordinary. oany authors push the reader through the beginning, race toward the climax to tie up the loose ends and present the conclusion.
Cool Water has a gentle, easy pace – epiphanies don’t strike like lightning, but are realised in a profoundly realistic manner.
For those who have never been to the “mysterious west” of Canada, Dianne’s descriptions of Juliet will leave you dreaming of sand dunes and endless skies.
It really is possible to lose yourself in this book – the land, in which the characters play out their daily lives, takes on a life of its own. Even for those who don’t normally enjoy a “country and western” book, this one is worth browsing through.
Cool Water won the inaugural Canadian Governor General’s Award for English language fiction at the 2010 Governor General’s Awards, and it is easy to see why.
They say a friend is someone to whom you can say nothing, but feel as if you have shared everything with. In the same way, Cool Water says so much about the world, and does it by saying so little.
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