That this powerful book is Nathan Harris’s debut novel is remarkable; that he’s only 29 is miraculous. His prose is burnished with an antique patina that evokes the mid-19th century. And he explores this liminal moment in our history with extraordinary sensitivity to the range of responses from Black and White Americans contending with a revolutionary ideal of personhood ... All of this is drawn with gorgeous fidelity to these cautious characters, struggling to remake the world, or at least this little patch of it ... Harris stacks the timbers of this plot deliberately, and the moment a spark alights, the whole structure begins to burn hot ... What’s most impressive about Harris’s novel is how he attends to the lives of these peculiar people while capturing the tectonic tensions at play in the American South ... As an author, Harris eventually exercises a kind of fiery Old Testament justice, which is at once satisfying and terrifying. But if this is an era — and a genre — that has no room for encouragement, The Sweetness of Water is finally willing to carve out a little oasis of hope.
Harris’s characters are multifaceted, absorbing, and extraordinarily well-developed. They transport the reader into a difficult time of complex social problems, with situations that elevate the tension with each turn of the page. As more layers of the story unfold, Harris’s captivating and shrewd prose dissects individual motives, revealing vulnerabilities and thereby exposing the characters for who they are, and what they have become ... Harris creates a fascinating and compelling look into the Civil War era by taking a well-known aspect of the period, the Emancipation Proclamation, and candidly depicts the confusion in the aftermath of the new law on slave owners, and the slaves themselves. In a tumultuous time of instability and uncertainty, Nathan Harris brings to the foreground humanity’s aptitude for survival, compassion, and goodwill even in their darkest hour.
... paints a timeless portrait of warring factions seeking peace. ... Harris draws readers into this sense of longing by exploring silences: George’s meditative hunts, Landry’s muteness, Caleb’s hidden trysts, Prentiss’ pent-up anger and Isabelle’s secluded mourning. Insinuating dialogue, delivered with eloquent Southern reserve, and hostile eruptions between the Walker household and the Confederates explore the flip side of silence ... Celebrating all manner of relationships that combat hate, this novel is a hopeful glimpse into the long legacy of American racial and civil tensions.
... almost every time you expect a scene of horror, you get a scene of kinship instead ... A writer who dives into a gay love story along with one of mutual regard and affection between white and formerly enslaved people in the Deep South at the beginning of Reconstruction is clearly someone who wants to accomplish a lot and pose big questions. I applaud the novel’s ambition and I don’t want to mischaracterize the book. There are scenes that ring true with what we know about the experience of slavery ... Nevertheless, throughout The Sweetness of Water, it seems that Harris is working hard to undercut and reimagine the vision of post-Civil War America that readers commonly encounter, especially in novels and films of recent vintage. I sometimes admired that Harris was so willing to challenge the ways that slavery and its aftermath are typically portrayed in fiction (and also queerness, which rarely appears in novels about this period) — the beatings, the horror, the rage. Yet I repeatedly found myself saying: 'Really? Could that really happen?' ... doesn’t feel quite right. Why do the Walkers behave so differently from most of their fictional neighbors (and, for that matter, most real white Southerners of the time)? Why are Prentiss and Landry at ease with them? The novel doesn’t do the world-building work that would make the civil, supportive relationships among the four characters convincing ... Writing an ambitious novel is reaching for heaven; not quite getting there is less a failure than a promise for the future.
... extraordinary ... Despite its historical setting, this story asks questions that feel intensely relevant today ... Harris expertly introduces explosive plot twists across parallel threads ... There’s an elegant interplay among all facets of the narrative that at once raises the stakes for all the characters while gesturing toward a larger world outside Old Ox. The overall effect is a dazzling world-building that makes the relatively compact novel feel much larger than its 368 pages. I was immersed in the world that these characters inhabit ... While all the characters in this novel yearn, there’s a certain palpability to the yearning of the two brothers. Harris somehow manages to weave emotion into the smallest of moments ... Harris’s writing made me think about how the legacy of slavery is still with us, and how well-meaning whites can be complicit in its continuation. The overall effect is a deep interrogation of white fragility and the ease and convenience of white cowardice in the face of injustice ... Harris writes with the confidence and command of a seasoned master of the craft. And, of course, the magic of his sentences is in the details—everything is historically accurate and painstakingly researched, whether he’s describing the reprieve of a fresh tick mattress or the complexity of growing peanuts in Georgia soil. This novel is simply the best I have read in years.
Harris’ lucid prose and vivid characterization illustrate a community at war with itself, poisoned by pride and mired in racial and sexual bigotry. Prentiss and Landry are technically free, but they remain trapped by a lifetime of blighted hopes and broken promises. Reconstruction will prove to be yet another lie. Harris’ first novel is an aching chronicle of loss, cruelty, and love in the wake of community devastation.
Evocative and accessible, Nathan Harris's debut novel is a historical page-turner ... Harris asks a question Americans have yet to figure out: How does a community make peace in the wake of civil war? I'm not sure the novel comes close to finding an answer. But posing the question and following through the work undertaken felt incredibly worthwhile nonetheless ... its question feels urgent and familiar, because politics now feels like war ... joins the national conversation on race and reckoning with history already in progress. In struggles over flags, monuments, textbooks, and university tenure, we're still fighting over how to frame this event in public memory, so those old wounds feel particularly fresh. Nathan Harris makes those extraordinary, still contested times comprehensible through an immersive, incredibly humane storytelling about the lives of ordinary people ... In small moments, Harris convincingly captures the thoughts and actions of ordinary people trying to push through extraordinary times. And even though the story focuses on hope and unexpected kinship, it doesn't diminish the horrors of slavery or the struggle in its wake...None of it is minimized. Like the brothers, Harris tries to train the focus elsewhere for a time ... As an act of pure storytelling, it soars. On a deeper level, however, some aspects of the novel feel unsettled and incomplete. /The Sweetness of Water taps into America's longstanding and profound thirst for fantasies of racial reconciliation — stories in which Black people and white people find salvation together, bonding in the face of the egregious extreme racism of others. As appealing as they are, these narratives tend to reproduce certain problematic patterns. First, while seeming to focus on crucial issues, these narratives actually highlight individual exceptions to systemic problems that need real examination. Second, even in stories where Black people should naturally be the focus they tend to marginalize Black characters in order to center and affirm the virtue of good whites. And third, they can provide easy absolution without deeper reflection ... I felt those tensions keenly reading this novel, but while it flirts with the edge, it doesn't quite fall into the abyss. The difference is that The Sweetness of Water isn't a story about what happened to the enslaved after slavery's end, coopted to focus on a white family. It's a soapy and riveting drama-filled exploration of a fracture and a healing. The focus on an interracial cast is an necessity, feature rather than a flaw ... I only wish the ensemble was a little more interested in the fullness of its Black characters ... left a lasting and multifaceted impression: It's warm and absorbing, thought provoking and humane. But ultimately uneven in its ideas — a book whose resonance ever so slightly exceeds its art.
Harris peoples the small community with well-developed characters ... Harris writes in intelligent, down-to-earth prose and shows a keen understanding of his characters, and while the plot leads to several tragic events, there’s a tinge of hope at the end. This character study is credible and deeply moving.
Throughout the tumult, all three members of the Walker family discover reserves of unexpected courage and resolve—and one can’t help believing that if most of the other characters carried within them the empathy and grace displayed by the author of this compelling postbellum saga, most of the awful things that happen to them and their immediate surroundings would have been avoided ... An impressive debut by a storyteller with bountiful insight and assurance.
