RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewThis is a book about language, first and foremost, a literary approach to a real-world problem. So while facts and figures do find their way in, conveying how fast the waters will rise or how far the sea may ultimately intrude, they are not the main focus ... Rush captures nature with precise words that almost amount to poetry; the book is further enriched with illuminating detail from the lives of those people inhabiting today’s coasts ... The dispatches of the subtitle really come straight from the people on the front lines of this drowning ... To me, these are the most intense portions of the book, yet there is no character, not even Rush herself, to guide you through the whole of this story. Nor is there really a plot to follow, not even a chronology that points the way through a series of essays veering from haunting survivors’ tales to poetic musings on science. It’s an intentional series of vignettes, however, bolstered by deep reporting and a sense of history, reminiscent in part of W. G. Sebald’s works evoking place, even up to including photographs, like the pictures of rampikes that mark various chapters. It’s often a treat to figure out where Rush is going with any particular story ... Elegies like this one will play an important role as people continue to confront a transformed, perhaps unnatural world, and grieve for the doomed or already lost.
David Owen
MixedThe New York Times Book Review...a brisk and informative travelogue ... Owen has the keen observation of a birder combined with the breezy writing to draw you in with unusual insights but he also often wanders off course, away from the river and an explanation of where its water goes ... Where the Water Goes raises more questions than it answers, but if wondering where the water comes from prompts readers to plumb this voluminous literature around the Colorado River more deeply, then Owen’s book will have done important work.
