new york times book review covenant of water

Doctor-novelist Abraham Verghese unpacks his long-awaited new epic

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The Covenant of Water

By Abraham Verghese Grove: 736 pages, $32 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org , whose fees support independent bookstores.

There’s a large whiteboard to the side of Abraham Verghese , acclaimed author and, by day, professor at Stanford University School of Medicine . He swivels in his chair to point to it over Zoom. This is where the cast of his new novel, “ The Covenant of Water ,” took shape — where he jotted down notes and drew sketches of characters including Big Ammachi, the book’s matriarch, whom we first meet as a 12-year-old bride in South India; her son, Philipose, who chronicles the lives of local villagers in newspaper columns signed “The Ordinary Man”; his wife, Elsie, an artist of transcendent gifts; and their daughter, Mariamma, an aspiring physician.

Yet as the novel grew in scope — it spans seven decades, from 1900 to the 1970s, and more than 700 pages — Verghese found himself constantly reworking things. “It’s not as though I’m without a plan — I have a plan,” he insists. “But what happens is over time the characters pretty much dictate that the plan I had just wasn’t going to work for them. So I’d take a photograph of the whiteboard, erase it, and start again.”

One imagines that Verghese’s long-awaited followup to his 2009 bestseller, “ Cutting for Stone ,” involved a lot of scribbling and scrubbing: It’s an immense, immersive work, brimming with interconnected story lines that meander and converge like great river tributaries.

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It is the story of three generations of one family in the Christian community of Parambil, along the Malabar Coast of South India, a “child’s fantasy world of rivulets and canals” that has “spawned a people — Malayalis — as mobile as the liquid medium around them.” The novel encompasses intense passion and tragedy, as well as a medical mystery: The family suffers from an illness, or curse, which they call the “Condition,” that has caused death by drowning in every generation.

Did Verghese know just how vast an undertaking the book would become? “No, I didn’t,” he says with a shrug. “I think I always had the ambition to write a big book; I enjoy reading big books. There’s nothing else I know that can stop time as effectively as getting lost in a big novel.”

For inspiration, Verghese, 67, drew heavily on his mother’s drawings and stories of growing up in the region. “The Covenant of Water” captures this world as it moves, haltingly, through the 20th century — exploring themes of political upheaval, progress and privilege, death and disease along the way. Her tales, he says, were “so rich that I thought, if I’m looking for a landscape, a geography — and I always felt that geography is like a character in any book — then here was one that I knew well.”

He has known many landscapes. His parents, members of the St. Thomas Christian community of Kerala , were hired by Emperor Haile Selassie to teach in Ethiopia, where Verghese was raised. Most summers, he would return to his grandparents’ village in India. His memories, he says, “are still tinged with the lamplight of that era” before electricity.

He began his medical training in Ethiopia, but civil war intervened and Verghese came to the U.S. to work as a nurse’s assistant. He eventually finished his coursework in Madras (where Mariamma studies in the novel). Both experiences, he says, instilled in him an appreciation of “the bedside and the body as opposed to the technological emphasis we’ve slipped into now.”

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Verghese sees a symbiotic relationship between his twin professions, and he brings a similar sensitivity to each. “I’m an internist and by nature we tend to be very attentive to what the body is saying,” he explains. “I feel like I try to bring those qualities to writing. … I resist the notion that it’s two different things. In my mind, I see myself as just this one being, all physician, and I think the lens I bring to the world, whether in the hospital or writing something, is the same lens.”

Though he is an infectious disease specialist by training, Verghese says he spent the COVID pandemic for the most part removed from the front lines of emergency rooms. Yet he watched in horror as other parts of the country were under siege, including his former home of El Paso (the setting of his 1998 memoir, “The Tennis Partner”).

The period also brought back painful memories of the 1980s AIDS crisis, the subject of Verghese’s first book, “ My Own Country : A Doctor’s Story.”

“It was a very intense experience,” he says of the last few years. “Firstly, in the sense that I felt I had already lived through the defining illness of my career — and then something came along that completely eclipsed it. So it was really kind of stunning, with many, many echoes of the AIDS epidemic for me personally.”

Working on “The Covenant of Water” as COVID raged also opened up stark and poignant parallels. “Here I was writing about illness and death in the 1900s, and it just felt to me that nothing had changed in terms of the things we turn to for sustenance in times of great challenge,” he says. “What matters are things like family and loved ones, people who are willing to make sense of your life for you even as it’s slipping away.”

Verghese believes the literature of the pandemic has yet to be written — but it will. “Very much like HIV, I think one has to wait a little bit to digest what happened,” he says. “I’m sure we’ve already seen many, many narratives, but I think we’ll see more quality ones as time goes on.”

Perhaps Verghese will help write that story himself, returning to the mix of reportage and memoir of his earlier books. But for now, he has embraced the broader, freer canvas of make-believe.

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“The great liberation of fiction is that you can do anything you want, but I think you have to work 20 times harder to get the reader’s attention and keep it,” he says. “It’s a different kind of enterprise altogether, but I enjoy it much more than I think I do nonfiction.”

There’s a saying in the novel that Philipose repeats like a mantra: “Fiction is the great lie that tells the truth about how the world lives.” It’s a sentiment that resonates with Verghese, who feels an affinity for Philipose’s workmanlike approach. “I identify with Philipose in a way,” Verghese admits. “There is true genius in the world and there are people, I suppose like me, who just slog at it and in the end you have a product.”

“The Covenant of Water,” of course, is much more than that: It’s an essential, even healing feat of imagination, a whole world to get lost in. May Verghese continue to slog away, wiping clean his whiteboard over and over again.

Tepper has written for the New York Times, Vanity Fair and Air Mail, among other places, and is curator of international literature at City of Asylum in Pittsburgh.

Verghese will discuss “The Covenant of Water” with Aimee Liu at the William Turner Gallery in Santa Monica for a Live Talks Los Angeles event at 8 p.m. May 3 .

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The Covenant of Water

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• May 2, 2023, 736 pages

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Winner: BookBrowse Fiction Award 2023 From the New York Times–bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, and following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

The Covenant of Water is the long-awaited new novel by Abraham Verghese, the author of the major word-of-mouth bestseller Cutting for Stone , which has sold over 1.5 million copies in the United States alone and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for over two years. Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India's Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, known as Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants. A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the difficulties undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. It is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.

Excerpt The Covenant of Water

1900, Travancore, South India She is twelve years old, and she will be married in the morning. Mother and daughter lie on the mat, their wet cheeks glued together. "The saddest day of a girl's life is the day of her wedding," her mother says. "After that, God willing, it gets better." Soon she hears her mother's sniffles change to steady breathing, then to the softest of snores, which in the girl's mind seem to impose order on the scattered sounds of the night, from the wooden walls exhaling the day's heat to the scuffing sound of the dog in the sandy courtyard outside. A brainfever bird calls out: Kezhekketha? Kezhekketha? Which way is east? Which way is east? She imagines the bird looking down at the clearing where the rectangular thatched roof squats over their house. It sees the lagoon in front and the creek and the paddy field behind. The bird's cry can go on for hours, depriving them of sleep ... but just then it is cut off abruptly, as though a ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

• The Covenant of Water begins in South India at the turn of the twentieth century on the eve of an arranged marriage. Initially, the young bride and her much older husband are nameless, while those around them are named. What effect does this create in your introduction to the main characters and how they evolve over time? When the bride is bequeathed the name "Big Ammachi" (p. 64) by her stepson, how does she grow into her title?
• Big Ammachi finds out about "the Condition" that runs through her new family by means of dramatic tragedy, even though her husband and JoJo's aversion to water was evident early on. What impact do the circumstances of "the Condition" have on the decisions each generation makes for their future?
• In what ways ...
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Winner: 2023 BookBrowse Fiction Award Verghese sustains this massive story with numerous enigmatic and vividly drawn characters like Big Ammachi, Digby, a Swedish physician named Rune who runs a colony for lepers, Philipose and his love Elsie, who is born to be an artist of staggering genius if only the world will let her. However, running like a riptide beneath the waters of the Malabar Coast, the Condition strikes the family in new, unbidden and heartbreaking ways. It will reach a crescendo with Mariamma, Big Ammachi's granddaughter, who becomes a neurosurgeon to unlock the secrets of this affliction, only to face the secrets "that can bind them together or bring them to their knees when revealed.".. continued

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• About the Book

From the New York Times bestselling author of CUTTING FOR STONE comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, and following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret.

THE COVENANT OF WATER is the long-awaited new novel by Abraham Verghese, the author of the major word-of-mouth bestseller CUTTING FOR STONE, which has sold over 1.5 million copies in the United States alone and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for over two years.

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, THE COVENANT OF WATER is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: In every generation, at least one person dies by drowning --- and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a 12-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her 40-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl --- and future matriarch, known as Big Ammachi --- will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph, as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, THE COVENANT OF WATER is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the difficulties undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. It is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

• Publication Date: May 2, 2023
• Genres: Fiction , Historical Fiction
• Hardcover: 736 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press
• ISBN-10: 0802162177
• ISBN-13: 9780802162175

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The Covenant of Water , by Abraham Verghese (Grove) . This novel begins in 1900 in southern India, with the arranged marriage of a twelve-year-old girl to a forty-year-old widowed farmer. Big Ammachi, as she comes to be called, has married into a family with a curse: once every generation, a member drowns. Life unspools across seven decades, during which time Big Ammachi’s loved ones suffer maladies that are treated by practitioners of both traditional and Western medicine. The novel is a searching consideration of the extent to which seemingly contrary approaches to healing can coalesce; for a Swedish doctor who has founded a leprosarium, “medicine is his true priesthood, a ministry of healing the body and the soul of his flock.”

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Review: The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

If you’re reading this review because you loved Cutting for Stone by Verghese, that’s exactly why I picked out The Covenant of Water on NetGalley and was SO stoked when the publisher granted me access. It was definitely an epic story similar to Cutting for Stone , but was it as good? Read on to find out what I thought!

The Summary

From the New York Times–bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial new epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala and following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

The Covenant of Water is the long-awaited new novel by Abraham Verghese, the author of Cutting for Stone . Published in 2009, Cutting for Stone became a literary phenomenon, selling over 1.5 million copies in the United States alone and remaining on the New York Times bestseller list for over two years.

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. The family is part of a Christian community that traces itself to the time of the apostles, but times are shifting, and the matriarch of this family, known as Big Ammachi—literally “Big Mother”—will witness unthinkable changes at home and at large over the span of her extraordinary life. All of Verghese’s great gifts are on display in this new work: there are astonishing scenes of medical ingenuity, fantastic moments of humor, a surprising and deeply moving story, and characters imbued with the essence of life.

A shimmering evocation of a lost India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. It is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.

As I sit here watching my blinking curser, I’m wondering where to start with this book. Man, it was a lot. Good a lot, mostly!

The first thing I noticed was the time investment I’d need to put into it. I didn’t look at how long it was before requesting it on NetGalley, but when I finished the first chapter and my Kindle was telling me it would take 18 more hours to read the whole thing, I just about had a fit 😆. Not only is it over 700 pages, but I also wouldn’t really call it a book that reads quickly. There’s a lot going on that you don’t want to miss, plus quite a few unfamiliar words and names to stumble a little over.

Anyway, once I got over the fact that it was going to take me forever to read, I settled in and was really enjoying it. I really had no idea about the history of South India’s Malabar Coast, so it really was fascinating. It begins with the marriage of a child to a grown man, but she (Big Ammachi) lives with him for several years until anything is consummated. Everything about this was fascinating to read, especially the customs and rules and the overall lay of the land.

Man, Verghese can set a scene. The tropical forests came alive for me, which made it all into a pretty epic movie in my head the whole time. The characters were also like real people to me, like I was there.

There’s a lot of tragedy in this book, but also a lot of beauty, and that juxtaposition makes this book really, truly beautiful. I will say, though, that the tragedy almost got to be too much for me. If I’m going to stick through such a long book, it can’t be all drudgery. Just when things were getting too bleak, though, the story would switch or something would happen to draw me in again.

Speaking of story switching, this book is in chunks. You read one character’s bit, then you move on to another, and another, and then return to the first. While I did enjoy the way all the stories worked together, it was hard to get invested in one story just to be ripped away to one of the other characters’ story lines.

If you read other reviews of The Covenant of Water , you’ll probably find some that are critical of just how much history and politics Verghese jam packs into this book. And, well, they’re right – there’s a lot. For the most part, though, it added to the story. It’s really epic, really involved, and just like a whole historical novel that delivers on the historical bit in a pretty big way.

Then there’s yet another layer: the medical stuff. Just like Cutting for Stone , this novel really holds a lot of truly interesting medical history. I will completely agree with the summary when it says the book is “ a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. ” I especially love the mysticism in the beginning of this “condition” that’s passed down from generation to generation and they have no idea what it is, then suddenly in the 70s, the science is there to try to figure it out.

Overall, I loved The Covenant of Water . However, I did knock one star off because it was SO long, SO history and detail packed, and…well, epic. It really is an amazing work of art and an engrossing read, and I do recommend it to anyone who loved Cutting for Stone or likes these kinds of epic literary novels. Just do what I did and listen to a few audiobooks in between some of the cutaways to the other characters to give yourself some time to take it all in.

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Book Review: The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese

15 May 2023

t’s been a little while since I’ve done a book review. Things have been busy and this read was a chunky one which I didn’t want to rush through. I do want to say a quick thank you to my followers who have checked in with me to see when the next one is coming out and I’m sorry I couldn’t have got this out sooner! But as promised, here is the next one for you and what a good one it is… 

THANK YOU TO EMILY BURNS AND BRANDHIVE FOR AN UNPUBLISHED PROOF OF THIS BOOK IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW. PLEASE NOTE THAT MY POSTS MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS

As a book lover, never did I imagine that I would get the opportunity to review an unpublished version of the anticipated new novel from a New York Times Bestselling author – safe to say I am ecstatic. Picked as Oprah’s Book of the Month, I was keen to see how this shaped up. I’ll be honest, I have not read Cutting For Stone and at over 700 pages, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this novel. 

Abraham Verghese, is an accomplished physician who decided during his career to turn to creative writing. His first novel, Cutting For Stone, was widely acclaimed and hit the New York Times Bestseller list.

Upon opening The Covenant of Water, there is a long and heartfelt note for advanced readers. Already you can begin to see the outpouring of warmth from Verghese which flows throughout this book.

“Most families are bound not just by blood but by secrets.” – Abraham Verghese

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. The family is part of a Christian community that traces itself to the time of the apostles, but times are shifting, and the matriarch of this family, known as Big Ammachi—literally “Big Mother”—will witness unthinkable changes at home and at large over the span of her extraordinary life.

Our journey starts with a 12 year old girl who we later come to know as Big Ammachi. We follow her through marriage, children, heartbreak, and happiness as well as the lives of her family and those who enter her life. 

I struggle with the notion of arranged and young marriages. Mostly due to reading fantasy books who heavily paint them in a patriarchal light. However, Verghese writes about this tradition which is one of the back-bones to Indian culture; sympathetically but also matter of factly. Without focusing overly on what could be seen as an uncomfortable topic (particularly for the white western audience), Verghese illustrates the development of these relationships, the emotions at play and the cultural norms, both historic and modern, with grace. Combined with the immersive descriptions of Southern India from 1900 through to 1977, this was by far my favourite storyline of the book. 

Through our Ammachi, we learn about the Condition which affects her new husband’s family. Each generation has a death where the cause is water. The Parambil Estate is surrounded by water with many making their living from it. For our Ammachi, water brings her life. Having grown up surrounded by luscious waterways, she cannot understand her new husbands’ aversion to water. So when she faces a tragic loss to the condition, she begins to see its true grip on her family. 

The family begins to expand with new generations. This story spans 70+ years across these multiple generations, and with this, we encounter plenty of political change. In the early 1900s, India was under British rule where the rumblings of independence began and we begin to see how those within the years before India gained independence, fair with one another. Verghese carefully builds upon the historical elements within this story to help the reader understand these political nuances as well its impact on future generations. 

There are two further storylines within this novel. These belong to the Scottish doctor, Digby Kilgour and the loveable and larger than life Swede, Rune Orqvist. Each character has their own well developed backstory which at times, could have been standalone novels. With an incredible attention to detail, Verghese describes both intimate and medical scenes with equal and exacting clarity. The emotional experiences each character has is deep and torrid yet beautiful and grounding. One of the standout moments for me was Phillipose’s homecoming. Returning from college (for reasons I shall not share because you know… spoilers!), Phillipose experiences a moment where his world rights itself. The emotion Verghese manages to convey is both heart wrenching yet heartwarming. You feel this character’s love, want and utter need to be home. To smell the flowers, feel the dirt beneath his feet and hear the wildlife around him. Something only a few of us ever truly experience.  

The Covenant of Water is broken out into parts with numerous chapters. On the whole, the chapters are short but the parts are large. The parts helped to bring in the new storylines and move the development of the overall story along however, I did find the initial concept quite jarring. The initial chapters of the new storylines were long and you’re deep into the new world before being abruptly switched into another. Despite my initial feelings on this approach, it does become clear that Verghese has taken a surgeon-like approach to this story. I did at times wonder why certain backstories existed other than to provide character context; however, upon reflection it is clear that this is his skill at threading these small details to one another; illustrating yet again the deep and complex human connection. Much like the beloved water; everything soon flows together. 

Many have characterised Verghese as compassionate and determined, both of which are prominent in his prose. His passion for his profession, family and faith are beautifully poetic within this story. From descriptions of Kerala and Parambil to Glasgow’s City streets, the world-building is beautifully done. This is an evocative yet humbling novel which leaves you with a deep understanding of human connection. You’ll need tissues, but you’ll enjoy every moment of it. 

Do you think you’ll be giving this one a try?

Rating: ★★★★/5 stars

As always, happy reading.

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Posted By: Hannah · In: Book Reviews , Recommendations

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March 2024 Book Review | 'The Covenant of Water'

Dr. Abraham Verghese’s much-anticipated second novel, “The Covenant of Water," follows three generations of a family that suffers from a strange affliction or is it a curse?

Dr. Abraham Verghese’s 2009 bestseller “Cutting for Stone” sold over 1.5 million copies in the US alone. It was on the New York Times’ Bestseller list for two straight years. It’s been a 14-year gap, but in May 2023, his long-awaited second novel “The Covenant of Water” was published. It too, went right to the bestseller list.

Dr. Verghese admits it has taken some time for this second book but reminds us he does have a day job. In addition to being an author, Verghese is a physician, Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine and Vice Chair of Education at Stanford University Medical School.

His writing process begins with a general outline of the story mapped out on a white board. He knew he wanted a multi-generational tale with a good, strong mother-figure to carry the story and he created a wonderful one. His characters often make decisions along the way which change the course of the story.

The story begins in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast. In 1900, a 12-year-old girl is sent off to marry a man 30 years her senior and in time becomes the family matriarch known as Big Ammachi. Her presence is felt by every generation as the epic story unfolds. Deep within the dynamics of relationships and life experiences is hidden a family secret.

Oprah was among the first to sing the book’s praises when she selected it as the 101 st pick for her famous book club. She said it was one of the best books she’d ever read. “It’s epic. It’s transportive . . . It was unputdownable!”

Recognizing the 736-page length might be overwhelming for some readers, she allowed an extra month or two before even announcing the next book club pick. Because it’s in her top three books of all time, she’s doing her best to steward the book by negotiating for the rights for a screen version and doing a series of podcasts.

“The Covenant of Water” can be found at local libraries.

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New York Times Bestseller

THE COVENANT OF WATER

by Abraham Verghese ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 2, 2023

By God, he's done it again.

Three generations of a South Indian family are marked by passions and peccadillos, conditions and ambitions, interventions both medical and divine.

"Where the sea meets white beach, it thrusts fingers inland to intertwine with the rivers snaking down the green canopied slopes of the Ghats. It is a child’s fantasy world of rivulets and canals, a latticework of lakes and lagoons, a maze of backwaters and bottle-green lotus ponds; a vast circulatory system because, as her father used to say, all water is connected." Verghese's narrative mirrors the landscape it is set in, a maze of connecting storylines and biographies so complex and vast that it's almost a little crazy. But as one of the characters points out, "You can't set out to achieve your goals without a little madness." The madness begins in 1900, when a 12-year-old girl is married off to a widower with a young son. She will be known as Ammachi, "little mother," before she's even a teenager. Her life is the central stream that flows through the epic landscape of this story, in which drowning is only the most common of the disastrous fates Verghese visits on his beloved characters—burning, impaling, leprosy, opium addiction, hearing loss, smallpox, birth defects, political fanaticism, and so much more, though many will also receive outsized gifts in artistic ability, intellect, strength, and prophecy. As in the bestselling and equally weighty Cutting for Stone (2009), the fiction debut by Verghese (who's also a physician), the medical procedures and advances play a central role—scenes of hand surgery and brain surgery are narrated with the same enthusiastic detail as scenes of lovemaking. A few times along this very long journey one may briefly wonder, Is all this really necessary? What a joy to say it is, to experience the exquisite, uniquely literary delight of all the pieces falling into place in a way one really did not see coming. As Ammachi is well aware by the time she is a grandmother in the 1970s, "A good story goes beyond what a forgiving God cares to do: it reconciles families and unburdens them of secrets whose bond is stronger than blood."

Pub Date: May 2, 2023

ISBN: 9780802162175

Page Count: 736

Publisher: Grove

Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023

LITERARY FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION

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THE NIGHTINGALE

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 3, 2015

Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.

Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.

In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring  passeurs : people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the  Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.

Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3

Page Count: 448

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014

HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

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by Kristin Hannah

BOOK TO SCREEN

THE GOD OF THE WOODS

by Liz Moore ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 2, 2024

"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.

Many years after her older brother, Bear, went missing, Barbara Van Laar vanishes from the same sleepaway camp he did, leading to dark, bitter truths about her wealthy family.

One morning in 1975 at Camp Emerson—an Adirondacks summer camp owned by her family—it's discovered that 13-year-old Barbara isn't in her bed. A problem case whose unhappily married parents disdain her goth appearance and "stormy" temperament, Barbara is secretly known by one bunkmate to have slipped out every night after bedtime. But no one has a clue where's she permanently disappeared to, firing speculation that she was taken by a local serial killer known as Slitter. As Jacob Sluiter, he was convicted of 11 murders in the 1960s and recently broke out of prison. He's the one, people say, who should have been prosecuted for Bear's abduction, not a gardener who was framed. Leave it to the young and unproven assistant investigator, Judy Luptack, to press forward in uncovering the truth, unswayed by her bullying father and male colleagues who question whether women are "cut out for this work." An unsavory group portrait of the Van Laars emerges in which the children's father cruelly abuses their submissive mother, who is so traumatized by the loss of Bear—and the possible role she played in it—that she has no love left for her daughter. Picking up on the themes of families in search of themselves she explored in  Long Bright River (2020), Moore draws sympathy to characters who have been subjected to spousal, parental, psychological, and physical abuse. As rich in background detail and secondary mysteries as it is, this ever-expansive, intricate, emotionally engaging novel never seems overplotted. Every piece falls skillfully into place and every character, major and minor, leaves an imprint.

Pub Date: July 2, 2024

ISBN: 9780593418918

Page Count: 496

Publisher: Riverhead

Review Posted Online: April 13, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024

LITERARY FICTION | GENERAL FICTION | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE

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by Liz Moore

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Secrets and mysteries

The do book club, sept. 2024: ‘the covenant of water’, joan naidorf, do, breaks down this novel’s enchanting combination of spirituality, early medical practice, anglo-indian history, romance and family devotion., the do book club, joan naidorf, do.

Joan Naidorf, DO, is an emergency physician, speaker, and author from Alexandria, Virginia.

Perhaps the pre-eminent physician author of literary fiction at this moment is the multitalented Abraham Verghese, MD. While holding an endowed chair at the Stanford University School of Medicine, he has managed to gift the rest of us with another long-awaited book, the multigenerational family saga entitled “The Covenant of Water.”

One cannot just sit down to casually read this work. It takes a full commitment over many days and possibly weeks to consume the more than 700 pages. The effort will be well-rewarded, as the novel delivers an enchanting combination of spirituality, early medical practice, Anglo-Indian history, romance and family devotion. As if that is not enough, a stately and amiable elephant makes recurring appearances at the family home.

In much the same way as his first novel, “Cutting for Stone,” did, Dr. Verghese portrays two of his lead characters as physicians training in the early 20 th century. This version of medical training fully depends on the arts of history taking, physical diagnosis and keen observation. No sonograms or MRIs were available to assist. Dr. Verghese loves to tell the tales of the old-time docs sleuthing out a difficult diagnosis.

Before antibiotics, anesthesia and aseptic technique, the narrative of medicine was a horror show that the author relates with relish. The labor and delivery room tales included here are as realistic and harrowing as being right there at the bedside. Today’s readers will wonder how any women and their infants actually lived through the dangers of childbirth.

Additionally, the treatment of leprosy and its devastating consequences loom large in the narrative. Dr. Verghese uses his extensive training and interest in infectious diseases to explain leprosy and the painful isolation of the people who suffer from this disease, which still exists in parts of India.

The tale of Marriama

The story’s primary line follows young Marriama, who later is called Big Ammachi, as she leaves her family home and enters an arranged marriage to an older man, Big Apachen, at his estate in Parambil. Her path to becoming an iconic homemaker, wife, mother and grandmother underlies much of the plot and power of this book. She is literate, progressive, religious and generous in every way. Dr. Verghese comments that he based her character on the stories told by and about the women in his own family.

For many generations, members of Ammachi’s family have suffered with what they refer to as “The Condition.” In every generation, several people drown even in situations that do not seem too dangerous. Finding the answer and underlying cause of this affliction becomes the life’s purpose of the latter generation’s protagonist, a young physician also named Marriama.

The novel moves back and forth in time and geographic locations to introduce the circumstances of a wide range of characters whose role and importance are not immediately obvious. Like every generational saga, there are mysteries and family secrets.

Dr. Verghese reveals, “Every family has secrets, but not all secrets are meant to deceive … What defines a family isn’t blood but the secrets they share.” (p. 762)

Sharing Indian culture

What stands out most of all in Dr. Verghese’s lyrical prose is his absolute love letter to the area and people of the Kerala state in India. The descriptions of the swelling rivers, monsoons, vegetation and the unique characters who live there will captivate readers long after they finish the novel.

Mostly, it is the water itself that becomes a force of biblical meaning and metaphor in the author’s creative hands, as he describes: “The water she first stepped into minutes ago is long gone and yet it is here, past and present and future inexorably coupled, like time made incarnate. This is the covenant of water: that they’re all linked inescapably by their acts of commission and omission, and no one stands alone. She stays there listening to the burbling mantra, the chant that never ceases, repeating its message that ‘all is one.’” (p. 753)

Dr. Verghese also creates a love letter to books, reading and writing through one of the main characters, who becomes immersed in all three. The character, Philipose, proclaims, “Fiction is the great lie that tells the truth about how the world lives!” (p. 256)

Life is fragile in the novel and the propensity for tragedy seems so cruel. The rewards of tackling this tome are many. I found myself highlighting many passages in my e-reader. For those of you unsure about the time commitment necessary to read this one, I have heard from reliable sources that the audiobook version, narrated by Dr. Verghese himself, is an outstanding work of performance art. When Oprah Winfrey chose the book as the 100 th title for her famous book club, the expectations for the book were huge. The doctor’s first two nonfiction works, “In Another Country” and “The Tennis Partner,” are also well worth finding in your local library or bookstore. The seven years that the author used to perfect this epic story were well worth the wait.

The fiction of “The Covenant of Water” holds many truths about love, forgiveness and the fallibility of humans. Physicians reading the book will once again be enchanted by the great mysteries of the practice of medicine.

Related reading:

The DO Book Club, July 2024: Summer beach reads with a medical twist

The DO Book Club, June 2024: ‘Autobiography of Andrew T. Still’

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Omed 2024 takes on texas: top things to do while visiting san antonio, a life in medicine, in memoriam: sept. 1, 2024, mental health, holding hope: honoring national physician suicide awareness day, match cycle, how signaling is shaping the 2024-2025 match season, making history, for the first time, a do is president-elect of the mississippi state medical association, more in patient care, the gift of time: reflecting on caring for patients who have cancer.

Stephanie Lee, DO, MS, shares a thought-provoking conversation that made her think differently about life, time and the present moment.

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David M. Smith, DO, shares how his integrated care program in Melbourne, Florida, has reduced its patients’ ED visits, hospitalizations and readmissions.

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The Covenant of Water Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER SUBJECT OF A SIX-PART SUPER SOUL PODCAST SERIES HOSTED BY OPRAH WINFREY

From the New York Times -bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

“One of the best books I’ve read in my entire life. It’s epic. It’s transportive . . . It was unputdownable!”—Oprah Winfrey, OprahDaily.com

The Covenant of Water is the long-awaited new novel by Abraham Verghese, the author of the major word-of-mouth bestseller Cutting for Stone , which has sold over 1.5 million copies in the United States alone and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for over two years.

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, known as Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the difficulties undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. It is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.

• Listening Length 31 hours and 16 minutes
• Author Abraham Verghese
• Narrator Abraham Verghese
• Audible release date May 2, 2023
• Language English
• Publisher Recorded Books
• ASIN B0BVDNPQ1V
• Version Unabridged
• Program Type Audiobook
• See all details

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• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 74% 18% 5% 2% 1% 2%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 1 star 74% 18% 5% 2% 1% 1%

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

Customers say

Customers find the storyline rich and well-written. They also praise the writing style as beautiful, meticulously woven, and an amazing accomplishment of research. Customers describe the characters as rich, well-defined, and smart. They find the emotional intensity profound, unique, and impossible to forget. They describe the book as engaging and lovable. Opinions are mixed on the length and emotional tone, with some finding it very long and generous, while others say it's very long. Readers also disagree on the content, with others finding the medical knowledge fascinating and clear, while other find the descriptions of medical procedures absurd.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Customers find the storyline rich, incredible, and beautifully written. They also say the book intertwines generations of families, both related by blood and related by spirit. Customers say the love expressed in the book is exquisite and overpowering. They say it's a study in humanity, family secrets, and friendships.

"...Through his vivid descriptions and keen insights , he delved into themes of identity, love, loss, and redemption, inviting readers to contemplate the..." Read more

"...It gave me the chance to learn , which I love to do...." Read more

"...It was so well thought and interesting . Characters were very well developed and likable, and admirable...." Read more

"...It is very well written and tells a rich tale of several different people living very different lives in India who somehow in some way become..." Read more

Customers find the writing style very well written, lyrical, and evocative. They also appreciate the remarkable clarity and depth, and the beautifully woven together puzzle pieces. Overall, readers describe the book as an amazing accomplishment of research.

"...'s prose captured the essence of human experience with remarkable clarity and depth ...." Read more

"To me, this is a beautifully written study of the human condition in a country that I know little of and its history of which I know even less...." Read more

"I loved the way Verghese can weave a story. It was so well thought and interesting. Characters were very well developed and likable, and admirable...." Read more

"Though a very long book, I didn’t want the story to end. It is very well written and tells a rich tale of several different people living very..." Read more

Customers find the characters in the book rich and well-defined. They also say Tom is a remarkable man and his accomplishments with all his running marathons.

"...It makes her such an amazing character . It is impossible to not love the characters in this book. Thank you for writing this book." Read more

"...Characters were very well developed and likable , and admirable. What I didn’t like was the use of SO MANY Indian terms...." Read more

"...It was definitely captivating and the characters draw you in and when you read the book it feels like you are a fly on the wall...." Read more

" Excellent character development …. In two or three chapters rambles on and on about nothing…. But for the most part is a good read…." Read more

Customers find the book nuanced, beautiful, and fulfilling. They say it's a testament to the wonders of perseverance and love. Readers also say it transports them to another world, providing interesting insights into the Indian culture.

"...Each scene was meticulously crafted, evoking a range of emotions and prompting introspection long after the audiobook had ended...." Read more

"This book is beautifully written and transports the reader to another world , where stories are connected by water. It’s a long book, but worth it." Read more

"...it drew me into a world I knew nothing about, and kept me engaged for the entire trip - through a country, a family, and through a world where the..." Read more

"...It is not a sad book but a powerful book about a family ." Read more

Customers find the book engaging, absorbing, and overpowering at the same time. They also mention the characters are lovable and the story is well drawn.

"...The love express in this book is exquisite, and overpowering at the same time ...." Read more

"...It is a long book but never boring . Each chapter compels the reader to fully understand each character from each generation as it moves to the end...." Read more

"...Also, the middle part got kinda boring & drawn-out, to be honest...." Read more

"...The characters were interesting. They gave one a familiar feeling . Descriptions of villages and farms totally absorbed this reader." Read more

Customers are mixed about the book length. Some mention that it's long but written in short chapters. They also say it'd be a great book for those looking for a long book. However, some customers feel the book is too long.

"This is a very long book and it took me several chapters to get into it, especially since there are so many characters and the narrative jumps back..." Read more

"Though a very long book , I didn’t want the story to end...." Read more

"Beautifully written but way too long . The many Indian names and words were hard to remember...." Read more

"...It’s a long book , but worth it." Read more

Customers are mixed about the emotional tone. Some find the book full of heart-stopping human tragedy, horrifying, and haunting. They also say the writing has tears freely flowing and in other parts had them laughing. However, others say the tragedies are difficult, incredibly disturbing, and exhausting.

"...An emotional roller coaster that’s both heartwarming and heartbreaking ." Read more

"...It is also very shocking and sad many times over ...." Read more

"...The humor is a bonus ; had me cackling repeatedly." Read more

"...Captivating and at times horrifying , enjoy the ride!" Read more

Customers are mixed about the content. Some find the medical knowledge fascinating, interesting, and enchanting. They also appreciate the clear historical and geographic setting and descriptions of India. However, some readers feel the book is weighed down by endless descriptions of medical procedures and Christian religious references.

"...characters and their journeys, infusing each moment with a palpable sense of authenticity ...." Read more

"...style of the author but found the different parts of the book a little disjointed with every new part added to the story line but it was worth going..." Read more

"...Verghese does a good job of incorporating medical , cultural, religious and political points and etail into the book...." Read more

"...knows his stuff , but, sorry, we’re not all doctors … Also, it was kinda gross , to be honest, at least, to me..." Read more

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‘The Hypocrite’ Book Club: Book Pairing Recommendations

Share recommendations of books you think would pair well with our September book club selection, “The Hypocrite,” by Jo Hamya.

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• Aug. 30, 2024

Did “The Hypocrite” make you think of other books? Are there other titles you love — fiction or nonfiction — that explore similar themes? Share your recommendations for books you’d pair with “The Hypocrite” in the comments here (click that chat bubble above to comment).

[ Click here to go back to the main book club hub. ]