We Are Water

November 4, 2013
Set mostly in Connecticut, Lamb's (She's Come Undone) fifth novel takes on race, class, sexuality, and art, sometimes clumsily, yet the complex plot is captivating. On the brink of her second marriage, artist Annie Oh fis plagued by "lifestyle guilt." After a tormented childhoodâa flood that killed her mother and sister; a stint in foster care; abuse at the hands of her cousinâAnnie leaves her husband, Dr. Orion Oh, for a woman: art dealer Viveca Christophoulos-Shabbas. The Ohs' three childrenâall grownâaccept their mother's decision, though Andrew is more reluctant than his sisters, Marissa and Ariane. Lamb seems eager to include many permutations of American identity: Orion is Chinese-Italian, Viveca is Greekâand previously married to an Arab man to boot. A section narrated by a Ku Klux Klansman's widow is unconvincing, torn between racism and apology. However Lamb excels at delivering unexpected blows to his characters, ratcheting up the suspense to the final page. Agent: Kassie Evashevski,United Talent Agency.

June 1, 2013

You can't get much more affecting than two-time Oprah pick author Lamb, and here he nicely nails the zeitgeist with the story of outsider artist Anna Oh, long married and the mother of three, who leaves her husband to marry her polished Manhattan art dealer, Vivica. With the approach of the wedding--set in Connecticut, where same-sex marriage has just been legalized--painful family issues boil to the surface. Anna, former husband Orion, and the children tell the story in alternating voices. With a one-day laydown on October 29, a 500,000-copy first printing, and a ten-city tour to Boston, Connecticut, Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, St. Louis, and Washington, DC.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2013
A searching novel of contemporary manners--and long-buried secrets--by seasoned storyteller Lamb (Wishin' and Hopin', 2009, etc.). Lamb's latest opens almost as a police procedural, its point of view that of one Gualtiero Agnello (hint: agnello means "lamb" in Italian), rife with racial and sexual overtones. Fast-forward five decades, and it's a different world, the POV now taken by an artist named Annie Oh, sharp-eyed and smart, who is attending to details of her upcoming nuptials to her partner and agent, Viveca, who has chosen a wedding dress with a name, Gaia. Notes Annie, reflecting on the Greek myth underlying the name, "[c]haos, incest, monsters, warring siblings: it's a strange name for a wedding dress." That thought foreshadows much of Lamb's theme, which inhabits the still-waters-run-deep school of narrative: Annie has attained some renown, is apparently adjusted to divorce from her husband, a clinical psychologist named Orion (Greek myth again, though he's Chinese) Oh, and is apparently bound for a later life of happiness. Ah, but then reality intrudes in various forms, from Viveca's request for a prenup to the long-suppressed past, in which natural disaster meets familial dysfunction. The story is elaborate and unpredictable, and the use of multiple narrators is wise, considering that there are a few Rashomon moments in this leisurely unfolding narrative. The characters are at once sympathetic and flawed and mostly, by the end, self-aware (Orion on Annie: "I'd just let her float away. But at the time, I couldn't admit that. It was easier to think of myself as Viveca's victim than to cop to my own culpability"). We all know that life is tangled and messy. Still, in reminding readers of this fact, Lamb turns in a satisfyingly grown-up story, elegantly written.

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