The House of Deep Water

December 2, 2019
Three women reluctantly return to their small Michigan hometown in McFarland’s fine debut. Linda Williams never wanted to return to River Bend, but when she leaves her husband, she has no choice but to go back to her grandmother’s house. Also coming back to town is her estranged mother, Paula, who might finally ask her long-abandoned husband for a divorce. And then there’s Elizabeth DeWitt, who grew up as one of the only black girls in town. She’s lost her job and marriage, and the recent arrest of the man who abused her as a child is dredging up traumatic memories. Linda, in her early 30s, starts an affair with Ernest, Elizabeth’s elderly Casanova of a father, and moves in with him after she gets pregnant. When Elizabeth and her two kids also move in, things start feeling a bit too uncomfortable. Then Ernest has a stroke and is no longer able to care for himself, leaving Elizabeth and Linda to deal with the tension between them. And Paula, always stuck in her set ways, reconsiders former convictions when she too moves in. All three women share complex feelings about their hometown and its inhabitants, most of which are handled with realistic nuance. McFarland’s layered tale will appeal to readers who liked Tayari Jones’s An American Marriage.