Sweetwater is Christina Baker Kline’s debut novel. The story is about Cassandra (Cassie), a
clay artist from New York, who was raised by her father, after her mother had
been killed in an accident when she was just three. They had been estranged
from her mother’s family since the accident and she was surprised to discover
that her maternal grandfather, upon his death, had bequeathed her a house and
acres of farmland in Tennessee. At this point, Cassie who was feeling a little disillusioned
with her life in NY, has a watershed moment and decides to move lock, stock and
barrel to Tennessee, much to the surprise of her father and her friends. But,
she is resolute for she sees this as an opportunity to unravel the past and
redefine her future.
The story is told in alternate chapters by Cassie and her unhappy grandmother Clyde. I found this style of storytelling with alternate perspectives, quite charming, albeit a little confusing in the beginning. The story starts off well. Christina’s narrative style is interesting and prose lucid.
Cassie finds that most of her mother’s relatives in Tennessee are confused and a bit suspicious about her sudden move from a “happening place” like New York to a dead town in Tennessee, a place youngsters want to flee from. None of them seems too thrilled to have her there and her grandmother, especially seems quite reticent about Cassie’s moving to her old house where she lived before.
Cassie soon finds
that her mother’s accident was shrouded in mystery and was somehow related to
the death of one of Clyde’s good friends. The more the family discourages
Cassie from investigating this relationship and opening old wounds, the more
determined and driven she gets about solving the mystery. However, for the
reader, after all the hype, the mystery turns out to be quite a let-down, for
there was not much of a mystery at all.
This being Christina’s first book, the writing was a bit immature. When one eats a mango that is not fully ripe, one finds some parts sweet and some sour and it gets even sourer towards the end. So also was this book, where I found the writing style to be inconsistent and the end especially left much to be desired. There were so many questions still unanswered after one finished the book. What happens to her friends Adam and Drew? Why was the gay cousin Ralph introduced in the book? In the end, does Cassie leave Tennessee for good to move in with her cousin Troy? Does she share her discoveries and her new relationships with her father?
Was the whole purpose of the incest relationship with her cousin, just to have him help her find the mysterious box? The one she believed held the key to the whole mystery. Did the author make him an “adopted” cousin, in an attempt to legitimize her relationship with him?
Somewhere in the middle of the book, the author randomly shows Cassie to have a lesbian character, which was not explained later in the book. It almost seemed like that was left in the book in error.
I also felt that I did not learn much from the book. She did not even make an effort to bring out the essence of the southern living or their flowery language or the famous southern hospitality.
All in all, I felt Christina Baker Kline has potential to be a good writer. But, she needs to focus on consistency in her writing and on how to tie the whole story together and bring it to a graceful end. Her latest book, The Orphan train, which was written twenty year later, was much better and made it to the NY bestsellers’ list. However, even in that book, the writing style in the end was starkly different from the rest of the book and she finished the story in too much of a hurry, though there was much scope to end it in a sensitive manner.
I am looking forward to finding Christina Baker Kline blossom into a consummate author in the coming years.
The story is told in alternate chapters by Cassie and her unhappy grandmother Clyde. I found this style of storytelling with alternate perspectives, quite charming, albeit a little confusing in the beginning. The story starts off well. Christina’s narrative style is interesting and prose lucid.
Cassie finds that most of her mother’s relatives in Tennessee are confused and a bit suspicious about her sudden move from a “happening place” like New York to a dead town in Tennessee, a place youngsters want to flee from. None of them seems too thrilled to have her there and her grandmother, especially seems quite reticent about Cassie’s moving to her old house where she lived before.
Cassie soon finds
that her mother’s accident was shrouded in mystery and was somehow related to
the death of one of Clyde’s good friends. The more the family discourages
Cassie from investigating this relationship and opening old wounds, the more
determined and driven she gets about solving the mystery. However, for the
reader, after all the hype, the mystery turns out to be quite a let-down, for
there was not much of a mystery at all.
This being Christina’s first book, the writing was a bit immature. When one eats a mango that is not fully ripe, one finds some parts sweet and some sour and it gets even sourer towards the end. So also was this book, where I found the writing style to be inconsistent and the end especially left much to be desired. There were so many questions still unanswered after one finished the book. What happens to her friends Adam and Drew? Why was the gay cousin Ralph introduced in the book? In the end, does Cassie leave Tennessee for good to move in with her cousin Troy? Does she share her discoveries and her new relationships with her father?
Was the whole purpose of the incest relationship with her cousin, just to have him help her find the mysterious box? The one she believed held the key to the whole mystery. Did the author make him an “adopted” cousin, in an attempt to legitimize her relationship with him?
Somewhere in the middle of the book, the author randomly shows Cassie to have a lesbian character, which was not explained later in the book. It almost seemed like that was left in the book in error.
I also felt that I did not learn much from the book. She did not even make an effort to bring out the essence of the southern living or their flowery language or the famous southern hospitality.
All in all, I felt Christina Baker Kline has potential to be a good writer. But, she needs to focus on consistency in her writing and on how to tie the whole story together and bring it to a graceful end. Her latest book, The Orphan train, which was written twenty year later, was much better and made it to the NY bestsellers’ list. However, even in that book, the writing style in the end was starkly different from the rest of the book and she finished the story in too much of a hurry, though there was much scope to end it in a sensitive manner.
I am looking forward to finding Christina Baker Kline blossom into a consummate author in the coming years.
