The Long-shining Water
My sister gave me The Long-Shining Waters as a holiday gift. She attended a book event hosted by the author and snagged me a signed copy.
The book takes place on Lake Superior. Since my family has a vacation home there, I was especially interested in reading the book. My sister thought of me because one character in the book is a Native American woman who has powerful dreams. I’m interested in both Native Americans and dreams and even wrote a novel about a Native American woman called Red Willow’s Quest.
Photo of Lake Superior near our house
The book explores the lives of three women who lived on Lake Superior in three different time periods. Grey Rabbit is an Ojibwe woman who lives with her husband, two sons and mother-in-law in 1622. She has a series of frightening dreams that cause her to fear for her sons during winter when food is scarce.
Berit lives in 1902 with her Norwegian husband who is a fisherman. Their home is isolated, leaving Berit with no friends. She faces a terrible loss and struggles to survive.
Nora is a modern woman in 2000 who owns a bar. Her life comes undone and she’s faced with a damaged relationship with her adult daughter and makes a journey around Lake Superior.
A fourth character is Lake Superior with its storms, waves and moods.
Prose poetry is interspersed between the chapters, setting a feeling and mood with detailed descriptions of nature. In the beginning is an Ojibwe hunting song:
The eagle, the eagle
Patient like him
From the rocks on high
You will perceive a lake. . .
The narrative rotates between these three women’s lives with each chapter changing from one woman to another. The writer has a background in short stories and the book felt like three separate short stories mixed together with little connecting them but Lake Superior. I got caught up in Berit’s story and skipped that chapters the pertained to Grey Rabbit and Nora then went back and read them.
The story is well-researched and the author was funded by two Arrowhead Regional Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowships Grants and by the McKnight Foundation. The author was also the recipient of the Loft Mentor Series Award. The book won the Milkweed National Fiction Prize.
The descriptions in this book are exquisite. Here is an example from the opening. “The cold wind off the lake sets the pines in motion, sets their needled tops drawing circles in the sky. It cuts through boughs and they rise and fall, dropping snow that pits the white surface below. The hardened leaves rattle and sail, and the limbs of the paper birch sway, holding the sky in heavy wedges.” p. 1.
The book examines the three women’s desire for meaning in life when faced with challenges and tragedy. If you’re looking for a book with rich, detailed prose that explores human emotions and universal needs, check out Sosin’s The Long-Shining Waters.
Lake Superior near our house
How important do you think the power of place is to most stories? In the book and recent movie The Martian, place was central to the story. Gone with the Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird had to take place in the southern United States. What other stories can you think of where place is important to the story? If you’re a writer, have you ever thought of location being a voice or character?
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