In The Hundred Waters, the nuclear family truly has nuclear potential, and that potential is energized by the secrets each family member keeps...In this way, Acampora allows us to rethink who holds power in a family—or in a community, or society...Her distant but detailed appraisal of her characters makes us consider the suburbs worthy of our attention once again...Perhaps these towns are not just sleepy places where people escape the social and professional pressures of big cities...Perhaps, instead, they are the headquarters from which silent puppets control the way we see the world...The Hundred Waters is a fast read that moves ever faster the deeper Louisa and Sylvie head down their suburban rabbit hole...When I reached the novel’s haunting conclusion, I got the eerie sense I hadn’t taken a breath in a long while.
In the tradition of territory-marking novelists John Cheever and John Updike, Lauren Acampora expertly captures deep-pocketed suburban restlessness in The Hundred Waters. But while she's sketching the particular emotional bankruptcy that can dovetail with a distinctly American brand of prosperity, Acampora contemporizes the suburban milieu by suggesting that social media and the climate crisis should be among any community's concerns ... How easy it would have been for Acampora to shape her story into a takedown of moneyed people whose every home, Louisa wagers, contains 'family portraits on the beach.' But The Hundred Waters is after something larger in scope and fundamentally humane. Through its delicate narrative circuitry and roving point of view, the novel gradually exposes a community that's in crisis without even knowing it.
A former model and photographer who swapped the gritty rawness of New York for the country clubs of her sleepy, affluent hometown, Louisa now curates Nearwater’s local art center...Married to a wealthy architect and raising a preteen daughter, she still feels a deep connection to the urgency and vibrancy of art-world Manhattan...Acampora reveals Louisa’s complicated relationship with her daughter slowly and methodically, letting readers gradually understand the extent of Louisa’s preoccupations...With this gem of a novel, Acampora cements herself as a thrilling voice in fiction.
