Watershed
- Author Mark Barr
- Narrator Christian Baskous
- Publisher Blackstone Publishing
- Publish Date 8 October 2019
- Run Time 9 hours and 25 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Fiction: general and literary, Historical fiction, Narrative theme: Sense of place.
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What to expect
Set in 1937 in rural Tennessee, with the construction of a monumental dam serving as background—a cinematically biblical effort to harness elemental forces and bring power to the people—Watershed delivers a gripping story of characters whose ambitions and yearnings threaten to overflow the banks of their time and place.
Nathan, an engineer hiding from his past, and Claire, a small-town housewife, struggle to find their footing in the newly electrified, job-hungry, post-Depression South. As Nathan wrestles with the burdens of a secret guilt and tangled love, Claire struggles to balance motherhood and a newfound freedom that awakens ambitions and a sexuality she hadn’t known she possessed.
The arrival of electricity in the rural community—where violence, prostitution, and dog-fighting are commonplace—thrusts together the federal and local worlds, in an evocative feat of storytelling in the vein of Kent Haruf’s Plainsong and Ron Rash’s Serena.
Critics Review
“[An] engrossing historical novel…The dam’s holdups raise the stakes of the story, and waiting to learn the characters’ fates, which are wrapped up in the success of the project, makes this historical tale gripping.”
“Readers looking for vivid historicals full of emotional turmoil in the vein of Wallace Stegner will enjoy this impressive novel.“
“Beautifully written, with deeply sympathetic characters and a richly described Tennessee landscape, Watershed brings a unique chapter in American history to vivid life.”
“Their stories intersect in suspenseful, heartfelt fashion.”
“Narrator Christian Baskous’s sonorous tone and soft Southern accent capture this heartfelt story…Baskous intuits the inner conflicts of Nathan and Claire.”
“Lyrical descriptions of the Tennessee landscape contrast vividly with the harsher reality of day-to-day life in a region and time almost exotic in its isolation.”
“Mark Barr’s vivid and heartfelt Watershed is the most engrossing and assured debut I’ve read in a long, long time.”
“A novel about change in many forms―personal, technological, and societal―and it handles them all with aplomb. A quintessentially American story…it reveals Barr as a writer of uncommon grace, skill, and promise.”
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