cover image Sweet Water

Sweet Water

Kathryn Kramer. Alfred A. Knopf, $24 (336pp) ISBN 978-0-375-40083-4

A former resort hotel in the rolling hills of Vermont links past and present entanglements in this ambitious and richly imagined tale of romantic intrigue. For 15 years, the Hotel Thrush Hollow has been the summer home of Greta and Ned Dene, who now discover love letters written to former owner Lucinda Dearborn, a beautiful, self-styled faith healer who inherited the place from her father in the 1870s. Lucinda's admirer is none other than the celebrated expatriate novelist O. It falls to Ned, a biographer, to decide whether he should reveal the human side of a writer who's known for his icy reserve. In reality, O.'s prudish refusal to enter into a physical relationship with Lucinda propelled her into the arms of a married neighbor with whom she sustained a secret passion of long duration. While Ned puzzles over his subject, Greta mourns the death of her longtime lover, Lars Crain, and considers revealing to Ned that their son Henry was actually fathered by Lars. Intending to confess all, Greta invites Lars's widow to Thrush Hollow, but when Julia Crain divulges a shocking secret of her own, Greta changes her mind. Given the heady mix that's gone before--including arranged marriages, ecclesiastical scandals, stigmata and faith healings--the ending seems pedestrian: Ned remains clueless, Henry returns from camp, Julia and Greta bond. Yet Kramer (Rattlesnake Farming) is a gifted stylist; her vivid characters (especially the Henry James caricature O.) and evocative prose propel the reader through the complexities of two distinct yet connected plots. She breathes life into two passionate women whose lives, though separated by a century, are intriguingly mirrored. (Aug.)