Water and Abandon

A meditation on the innumerable manifestations of loss, Vivian’s melodramatic new novel (after The Mover of Bones) opens on Dark Vespers, Neb., one year after the death of 17-year-old Kelsey Little. Since her body was recovered from the Sicangu River, Kelsey’s loved ones have not moved far from the grief that has become their burden. Her parents, Hank and Sam, suffer privately, as does her older boyfriend, Javier, who Hank never approved of; the loss has only deepened their anger against each other, and the questions that surround Kelsey’s disappearance three weeks before her death torture everyone. Why did a beautiful, well-adjusted girl run away and hide her pregnancy, even from Javier? Only Ike Parrish, a possibly crazy Korean War vet who communes with the Sicangu claims to know what happened to Kelsey through clairvoyant “river spells.” Slowly, Kelsey’s last days are revealed as each character’s pain interlocks and catalyzes the other in a series of strange occurrences that lead them away from and back to Kelsey’s death and the Sicangu. Sentimentality and an artificial folksiness bury the rare moments of beauty in this novel. (Sept.)