What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us

August 31, 2009
In her affecting debut collection, van den Berg taps into her characters’ losses with an impressive clarity. Each of these stories is meticulously crafted, and often the protagonist is recovering emotionally from a staggering life’s blow. In “Goodbye My Loveds,” two siblings are reeling from the death of their parents, scientists fatally snake-bitten in the Amazon; a sister leaves college to take care of her 12-year-old brother and recognizes the need to suppress her own needs in order to help her brother face their new lives. In the beautifully elegiac “Where We Must Be,” a failed actress gives up on L.A. and finds work as Bigfoot in a theme park; her love affair with a young neighbor dying of cancer underscores the preciousness of time’s passing. In the title story, a young woman learns to face her fears while spending time with her scientist mother observing endangered lemurs in Madagascar. These tales are the work of a notable author finding her voice.

Starred review from November 1, 2009
Lonely, abandoned, and adrift young women undertake missions esoteric, ludicrous, and risky in van den Bergs exceptional debut. As compelling as her characters and their predicaments are, its van den Bergs startling insights into the alliance between the human psyche and the mysteries of nature in a time of environmental mayhem that give these short stories their glimmering power. Jean, an aspiring and desperate young actor, plays Bigfoot in a renegade recreational park. Shelby tries to care for her increasingly bizarre little brother after their famous scientist parents die in the Amazon while searching for the sasquatch of Brazil. Botanist Emily searches for a rare wildflower in Inverness. Catherine is in the Congo where war, AIDS, and floods conjure up the lake monster mokele mbembe. A man searches for the mishegenabeg, the legendary giant serpent of the Great Lakes. A teenager dreams of becoming a long-distance swimmer as her scientist mother comes undone while studying the doomed lemurs in Madagascars pillaged forests. Van den Berg summons monsters born of awe, fear, and guilt, while her burdened but determined characters struggle in a sea of need and indifference. Stunning, desolate, and unforgettable.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)