Prentiss and Landry are brothers who grew up on a plantation and watched as their mother got sold off to another 'owner' while they remained. Plantation owners have been forced to free the enslaved people who have been working their land, tending their homes, minding their children-and frequently enduring violent abuse. Like so many other parts of the country, Old Ox has been torn apart by the Civil War, which is winding down as the novel opens. Many of them as familiar as signposts, long studied over many years from childhood on.Old Ox, Georgia, is the fictional town in which debut novelist Nathan Harris has set The Sweetness of Water. The large red oaks and walnut trees that surrounded his home could dim the sun into nothing more than a soft flicker in the sky passing between their branches. The land his father had passed down to him was over two hundred acres. The animal, he was sure, was always one step away from falling into his line of sight. This had been the first of such excursions all spring, and tramping through splintered pine needles and mushrooms swollen from the morning rain, he'd come upon a patch of land he'd yet to explore in full. He'd seen the animal in his mind's eye upon waking, and tracking it carried a sense of adventure so satisfying that all day he could not bear the thought of returning home. He'd taken to the woods that very morning, tracking an animal that had eluded him since his childhood, and now night was falling. Equal parts beauty and terror, as gripping as it is moving, The Sweetness of Water is an epic whose grandeur locates humanity and love amid the most harrowing circumstances.Īn entire day had passed since George Walker had spoken to his wife.

With candor and sympathy, debut novelist Nathan Harris creates an unforgettable cast of characters, depicting Georgia in the violent crucible of Reconstruction. In the aftermath of so much turmoil, it is Isabelle who emerges as an unlikely leader, proffering a healing vision for the land and for the newly free citizens of Old Ox.

But when their secret is discovered, the resulting chaos, including a murder, unleashes convulsive repercussions on the entire community. The young men, recently returned from the war to the town of Old Ox, hold their trysts in the woods. Parallel to their story runs a forbidden romance between two Confederate soldiers. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys.

The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm, hoping through an unexpected friendship to stanch their grief. In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry-freed by the Emancipation Proclamation-seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle.

The sweetness of water novel