“What defines a family isn’t blood but the secrets they share.”
“Yes, old man, yes, eyes open to this precious land and its people, to the covenant of water, water that washes away the sins of the world, water that will gather in streams, ponds, and rivers, rivers that float the seas, water that I will never enter.”
I’ve always loved a well-done epic family saga. (The Wakefields of Sweet Valley was my first taste of a family saga, and The Thornbirds was my second.) Epic family sagas, the chunkier the better, have a special place on my shelves and in my heart. Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water (Grove Press 2023), coming in at 715 pages, was everything I love and then some.
Set in what is now Kerala, India, a coastal state known for its network of waterways, The Covenant of Water spans from 1900 to 1977. The novel opens with the marriage of a 12-year-old girl to a 40-year-old widow with a son named JoJo. (It may be unsettling for readers in 2023, but it was the norm in 1900.) Her introduction to Parambil is delicately and passionately detailed – the land, the people, and the silent and strong man who is her husband are rendered with such love. She becomes Ammachi, “Little Mother” to JoJo long before she takes on the role of wife, and her husband does not even attempt any liberties or improprieties for years. (There are multiple age-gap love stories within the novel; theirs is but the first.)
Ammachi becomes the matriarch and heartbeat of Parambil, as well as of the story. Early on, she learns of the “Condition” that plagues her husband and his bloodlines; in a land where water is the lifeblood of the people, at least one person in every generation dies by drowning. The Condition is evident in those who have it as it reveals itself early with an extreme fear of water, even at bath time.
The Condition is a constant concern in a novel that is swollen with the waters that give and take. Even when the reader is carried away from Parambil, thoughts of the Condition still linger. The reader is quickly introduced to Digby, a Scottish doctor in Madras who is training to be a surgeon. Through him, the reader gets a different POV as it relates to medical knowledge, art, politics, and social commentary, but Digby is far more than just a vessel to carry the story.
With the delicate precision of a surgeon, Verghese intricately threads this story together. It flows like a body of water; at times it’s languid and glistening in the sun with a beauty so aching it hurts. Other times, it’s loud and chaotic – an uncontrollable force that destroys the landscape and threatens to take you under. From the monsoons to the canals, water is a living, breathing character in the novel, and it will take you home.
Read this book.
A Girl Named Tommi 