The Water Children

Anne Berry

HarperCollins

Otago Daily Times, June 25th 2011

Water is a fickle mistress, able to kill or cleanse, suffocate, or sanctify with equal ease, and the one thing that the main characters of Anne Berry’s new novel The Water Children have in common is that she has profoundly influenced each of their lives.

Owen’s sister drowns when he was 8, leaving him tormented by guilt and certain that she is waiting for him to join her, while a near-fatal accident on a frozen lake destroys Catherine’s ability to trust anything in her life. In contrast, Sean finds a sensual intimacy in the waters of the Shannon, returning to her embrace despite the brutal punishment he receives from his family for his trespass. And for Naomi the sea is the only place she can find physical and psychological relief from the abuse of her guardians. Their paths converge in London during the heatwave of 1976 and become entangled on a web of jealousy and danger that escalates with the temperature.

Although there are a few false notes early in the book ­ a 10 year-old girl is unlikely to describe an attempt to maintain balance as ‘like finding the biting point of a clutch’, nor is a snowy field likely to be seen as ‘like a lunar landscape’ 8 years before the first moon landing – the adult characters, particularly Naomi, are compellingly drawn. My strongest emotional engagement was not with any of the main characters, however. Not only does the book open with the death of a child not much older than my own daughter, the vulnerability of children is a recurring motif throughout the novel. Some of the images haunt me still.