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WATER
The Olson Family Saga
in Nineteenth-Century America
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''Stunning in its force, this beautifully written, intelligent novel establishes Daniel S. Jones as an important, mature voice in contemporary American fiction.'' Kay Sloan, Author of, The Patron Saint of Red Chevys. ISBN 1-931948-52-6 2008 |
WATER The Olson Family Saga in Nineteenth-Century America
by
DANIEL S. JONES (Xavier University, Ohio, USA)
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''I have not one story, but two, in my old age -- one I witnessed, and the other I lived -- both occurred in 1878, when I was all of thirty years old. The first is my hunt for identity, its effects, mainly, but also what a man might say to a father he's never met, whose skin he borrowed without tayloring a snug fit. My second story concerns the Olson family and their curse, started generations prior, which they say brought ruin to the once noble house.''
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Based on the framework of myths that produced the curse of the house of Atreus -- one of the most powerful Greek tragedies -- Water recounts the struggles of the Olson family, how they repeat the sins of forefathers and thus condemn future generations. A narrative of racial identity, political ambition, and sexual betrayal, Water translates the classical themes of fate, vengeance, and redemption into an American context.
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''Set primarily in New England in the 1870s, Water is the powerful story of Dean Hale, son of a runaway slave and a plantation owner, whose light skin allows him to lead a life of double identity in the white world of Waterton, Connecticut. Daniel S. Jones writes about the violence and secrets of this bygone era with compelling authority and unforgettable characters. Stunning in its force, this beautifully written, intelligent novel establishes Daniel S. Jones as an important, mature voice in contemporary American fiction.'' Kay Sloan, Author of The Patron Saint of Red Chevys.
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''Daniel S. Jones’s impressive first novel, Water, calls to a number of literary forebears, a deft blend of Invisible Man and Absalom, Absalom, and is answered by Ellison’s and Faulkner’s literary descendants, especially the Lee Smith of Oral History. Here, family history is family destiny, and the sins of the father are visited upon the children—and the children’s children—with brutal efficiency. At the center of the story, our own troubled Dante, absent his Virgil, schleps the weight of history up and down the circles of hell (he is thus—also—Sisyphus). Jones works at a deliberate pace, methodically peeling back the layers of deception and self-deceit among his landlocked ship of fools. Yet, he manages to inject just enough pathos, a modicum of regret, into his subjects; he manages, that is, to humanize their collective tragedy.'' Tyrone Williams, Author of C.C.
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''In his debut novel, Water, Daniel S. Jones describes a nineteenth-century African American's odyssey of self-discovery with the same gothic suspense as he devotes to the self-destruction of a Connecticut Yankee white family. Weirdly, unforgettably, Jones's Dean Hale, who has passed as a white man -- along with the Olsons who adopted him from birth -- ride a kind of underground railroad to a destination whose name is written in water. What an auspicious first book!'' James Reiss, Author of Riff on Six.
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Daniel S. Jones writes, edits, and teaches in Cincinnati, Ohio, where is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Xavier University. The author's current manuscripts include an anti-war novel titled, Lysistrata, Kentucky, and, Words Fly Away, a novel set in Cincinnati dealing with fundamentalism and homosexuality. Water is his first published novel. Daniel S. Jones won the 2005 Intro Journals Prize for Fiction from the AWP. The winning story was published in Controlled Burn.
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