Bodies of Water

by T. Greenwood

  Outstanding Praise for the Novels of T. Greenwood

  Bodies of Water

  “A complex and compelling portrait of the painful intricacies of love and loyalty. Book clubs will find much to discuss in T. Greenwood’s insightful story of two women caught between their hearts and their families.”

  —Eleanor Brown, New York Times bestselling author of The Weird Sisters

  “Bodies of Water is no ordinary love story, but a book of astonishing precision, lyrically told, raw in its honesty and gentle in its unfolding. What I find myself reveling in, pondering, savoring, really, is more than this book’s uncommon beauty, though there is much beauty to be found within these pages. The real magic of this book is not its lingering poetry or even the striking subject matter of two families trying to survive in an era in which many men and women found themselves bound by strict constructs of “husband” and “wife,” often resulting in them losing themselves and each other. The magic of this story is found in the depth and power of these relationships, as rich in texture as velvet, as fluid as water, as astonishing in their frailty as they are in their strength. Here is a complex tapestry of lives entwined, a testimony to the fact that a timeless sort of love does exist—one that sustains memory, derails oppression, and with its striking ferocity can cause human beings to relinquish love and yet also to recover it. T. Greenwood has rendered a compassionate story of people who are healed and destroyed by love, by alcoholism, by secrets and betrayal, and yet she offers us a certain shade of hope that while the barriers between people can make a narrow neighborhood street seem as wide as the ocean, soul mates can and do find each other—sometimes more than once in a lifetime. A luminous, fearless, heart-wrenching story about the power of true love.”

  —Ilie Ruby, author of The Salt God’s Daughter

  “T. Greenwood’s Bodies of Water is a lyrical novel about the inexplicable nature of love, and the power a forbidden affair has to transform one woman’s entire life. By turns beautiful and tragic, haunting and healing, I was captivated from the very first line. And Greenwood’s moving story of love and loss, hope and redemption has stayed with me, long after I turned the last page.”

  —Jillian Cantor, author of Margot

  Breathing Water

  “A poignant, clear-eyed first novel . . . filled with careful poetic description . . . the story is woven skillfully.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “A poignant debut . . . Greenwood sensitively and painstakingly unravels her protagonist’s self-loathing and replaces it with a graceful dignity.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A vivid, somberly engaging first book.”

  —Larry McMurtry

  “With its strong characters, dramatic storytelling, and heartfelt narration, Breathing Water should establish T. Greenwood as an important young novelist who has the great gift of telling a serious and sometimes tragic story in an entertaining and pleasing way.”

  —Howard Frank Mosher, author of Walking to Gatlinburg

  “An impressive first novel.”

  —Booklist

  “Breathing Water is startling and fresh . . . Greenwood’s novel is ripe with originality.”

  —The San Diego Union-Tribune

  Grace

  “Grace is a poetic, compelling story that glows in its subtle, yet searing examination of how we attempt to fill the potentially devastating fissures in our lives. Each character is masterfully drawn; each struggles in their own way to find peace amid tumultuous circumstance. With her always crisp imagery and fearless language, Greenwood doesn’t back down from the hard issues or the darker sides of human psyche, managing to create astounding empathy and a balanced view of each player along the way. The story expertly builds to a breathtaking climax, leaving the reader with a clear understanding of how sometimes, only a moment of grace can save us.”

  —Amy Hatvany, author of Best Kept Secret

  “Grace is at once heartbreaking, thrilling and painfully beautiful. From the opening page to the breathless conclusion, T. Greenwood again shows why she is one of our most gifted and lyrical storytellers.”

  —Jim Kokoris, author of The Pursuit of Other Interests

  “Greenwood has given us a family we are all fearful of becoming—creeping toward scandal, flirting with financial disaster, and hovering on the verge of dissolution. Grace is a masterpiece of small-town realism that is as harrowing as it is heartfelt.”

  —Jim Ruland, author of Big Lonesome

  “This novel will keep readers rapt until the very end . . . Shocking and honest, you’re likely to never forget this book.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Grace amazes. Harrowing, heartfelt, and ultimately so realistically human in its terror and beauty that it may haunt you for days after you finish it. T. Greenwood has another gem here. Greenwood’s mastery of character and her deep empathy for the human condition make you care what happens, especially in the book’s furious final 100 pages.”

  —The San Diego Union-Tribune

  “Exceptionally well-observed. Readers who enjoy insightful and sensitive family drama (Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin; Rosellen Brown’s Before and After) will appreciate discovering Greenwood.”

  —Library Journal

  Nearer Than the Sky

  “Greenwood is an assured guide through this strange territory; she has a lush, evocative style.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “T. Greenwood writes with grace and compassion about loyalty and betrayal, love and redemption in this totally absorbing novel about daughters and mothers.”

  —Ursula Hegi, author of Stones from the River

  “A lyrical investigation into the unreliability and elusiveness of memory centers Greenwood’s second novel . . . The kaleidoscopic heart of the story is rich with evocative details about its heroine’s inner life.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Compelling . . . Highly recommended.”

  —Library Journal

  “Doesn’t disappoint. A complicated story of love and abuse told with a directness and intensity that packs a lightning charge.”

  —Booklist

  “Nearer Than the Sky is a remarkable portrait of resilience. With clarity and painful precision, T. Greenwood probes the dark history of Indie’s family.”

  —Rene Steinke, author of The Fires and Holy Skirts

  “Greenwood’s writing is lyrical and original. There is warmth and even humor and love. Her representation of MSBP is meticulous.”

  —San Diego Union-Tribune

  “Deft handling of a difficult and painful subject . . . compelling.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Potent . . . Greenwood’s clear-eyed prose takes the stuff of tabloid television and lends it humanity.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “T. Greenwood brings stunning psychological richness and authenticity to Nearer Than the Sky. Hers is the very first work of fiction to accurately address factitious disorders and Munchausen by proxy—the curious, complex, and dramatic phenomena in which people falsify illness to meet their own deep emotional needs.”

  —Marc D. Feldman, M.D., author of Patient or Pretender and Playing Sick?: Untangling the Web of Munchausen Syndrome, Munchausen by Proxy, Malingering, and Factitious Disorder, and co-author of Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood

  This Glittering World

  “In This Glittering World, T. Greenwood demonstrates once again that she is a poet and storyteller of unique gifts, not the least of which is a wise and compassionate heart.”

  —Drusilla Campbell, author of The Good Sister and Blood Orange

  “T. Greenwood’s novel This Glittering World is swift, stark
, calamitous. Her characters, their backs against the wall, confront those difficult moments that will define them and Greenwood paints these troubled lives with attention, compassion and hope. Through it all, we are caught on the dangerous fault lines of a culturally torn northern Arizona, where the small city of Flagstaff butts up against the expansive Navajo Reservation and the divide between the two becomes manifest. As this novel about family, friendship, and allegiance swirls toward its tumultuous climax, This Glittering World asks us how it is that people sometimes choose to turn toward redemption, and sometimes choose its opposite—how it is, finally, that we become the people we become.”

  —Jerry Gabriel, author of Drowned Boy and winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction

  “Stark, taut, and superbly written, this dark tale brims with glimpses of the Southwest and scenes of violence, gruesome but not gratuitous. This haunting look at a fractured family is certain to please readers of literary suspense.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “Greenwood’s prose is beautiful. Her writing voice is simple but emotional.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  Undressing the Moon

  “This beautiful story, eloquently told, demands attention.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “Greenwood has skillfully managed to create a novel with unforgettable characters, finely honed descriptions, and beautiful imagery.” —Book Street USA

  “A lyrical, delicately affecting tale.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Rarely has a writer rendered such highly charged topics . . . to so wrenching, yet so beautifully understated, an effect . . . T. Greenwood takes on risky subject matter, handling her volatile topics with admirable restraint . . . Ultimately more about life than death, Undressing the Moon beautifully elucidates the human capacity to maintain grace under unrelenting fire.”

  —The Los Angeles Times

  The Hungry Season

  “This compelling study of a family in need of rescue is very effective, owing to Greenwood’s eloquent, exquisite word artistry and her knack for developing subtle, suspenseful scenes . . . Greenwood’s sensitive and gripping examination of a family in crisis is real, complex, and anything but formulaic.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “A deeply psychological read.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Can there be life after tragedy? How do you live with the loss of a child, let alone the separation emotionally from all your loved ones? T. Greenwood with beautiful prose poses this question while delving into the psyches of a successful man, his wife, and his son . . . This is a wonderful story, engaging from the beginning that gets better with every chapter.”

  —The Washington Times

  Two Rivers

  “From the moment the train derails in the town of Two Rivers, I was hooked. Who is this mysterious young stranger named Maggie, and what is she running from? In Two Rivers, T. Greenwood weaves a haunting story in which the sins of the past threaten to destroy the fragile equilibrium of the present. Ripe with surprising twists and heartbreakingly real characters, Two Rivers is a remarkable and complex look at race and forgiveness in small-town America.”

  —Michelle Richmond, New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Fog and No One You Know

  “Two Rivers is a convergence of tales, a reminder that the past never washes away, and yet, in T. Greenwood’s delicate handling of time gone and time to come, love and forgiveness wait on the other side of what life does to us and what we do to it. This novel is a sensitive and suspenseful portrayal of family and the ties that bind.”

  —Lee Martin, author of The Bright Forever and River of Heaven

  “The premise of Two Rivers is alluring: the very morning a deadly train derailment upsets the balance of a sleepy Vermont town, a mysterious girl shows up on Harper Montgomery’s doorstep, forcing him to dredge up a lifetime of memories—from his blissful, indelible childhood to his lonely, contemporary existence. Most of all, he must look long and hard at that terrible night twelve years ago, when everything he held dear was taken from him, and he, in turn, took back. T. Greenwood’s novel is full of love, betrayal, lost hopes, and a burning question: is it ever too late to find redemption?”

  —Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, author of The Effects of Light and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize–winning Set Me Free

  “Greenwood is a writer of subtle strength, evoking small-town life beautifully while spreading out the map of Harper’s life, finding light in the darkest of stories.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “T. Greenwood’s writing shimmers and sings as she braids together past, present, and the events of one desperate day. I ached for Harper in all of his longing, guilt, grief, and vast, abiding love, and I rejoiced at his final, hard-won shot at redemption.”

  —Marisa de los Santos, New York Times bestselling author of Belong to Me and Love Walked In

  “Two Rivers is a stark, haunting story of redemption and salvation. T. Greenwood portrays a world of beauty and peace that, once disturbed, reverberates with searing pain and inescapable consequences; this is a story of a man who struggles with the deepest, darkest parts of his soul, and is able to fight his way to the surface to breathe again. But also—maybe more so—it is the story of a man who learns the true meaning of family: When I am with you, I am home. A memorable, powerful work.”

  —Garth Stein, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain

  “A complex tale of guilt, remorse, revenge, and forgiveness . . . Convincing . . . Interesting . . .”

  —Library Journal

  “In the tradition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird, T. Greenwood’s Two Rivers is a wonderfully distinctive American novel, abounding with memorable characters, unusual lore and history, dark family secrets, and love of life. Two Rivers is the story that people want to read: the one they have never read before.”

  —Howard Frank Mosher, author of Walking to Gatlinburg

  “Two Rivers is a dark and lovely elegy, filled with heartbreak that turns itself into hope and forgiveness. I felt so moved by this luminous novel.”

  —Luanne Rice, New York Times bestselling author

  “Two Rivers is reminiscent of Thornton Wilder, with its quiet New England town shadowed by tragedy, and of Sherwood Anderson, with its sense of desperate loneliness and regret . . . It’s to Greenwood’s credit that she answers her novel’s mysteries in ways that are believable, that make you feel the sadness that informs her characters’ lives.”

  —Bookpage

  Books by T. Greenwood

  Bodies of Water

  Grace

  This Glittering World

  The Hungry Season

  Two Rivers

  Undressing the Moon

  Nearer Than the Sky

  Breathing Water

  BODIES of WATER

  T. GREENWOOD

  KENSINGTON BOOKS www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Outstanding Praise for the Novels of T. Greenwood

  Books by T. Greenwood

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  Discussion Questions

  The Bodies of Water Playlist

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright Page

  For Carlene and Angela

  This is what I know: memory is the same as water. It permeates and saturates. Quenches and satiates. It can hold you up or pull you under; render you weightless or drown you. It is tangible, but elusive. My memories of Eva are like this: the watery dreams of a past I can no more easily grasp than a fistful of the ocean. Some days, they buoy me. Other days, they threaten me with their dangerous draw. Memory. Water. Our bodies are made of it; it is what we are. I can no longer separate myself from my recollect
ions. On the best days, on the worst days, I believe I have dissolved into them.

  It was the ocean’s tidal pull that brought me here to this little beach town forty years ago, and later to this battered cottage perched at the edge of the cliffs, overlooking the sea. It is what keeps me here as well. And while I may not be able to escape my memories, I have escaped the seasons here; this is what I think as summer turns seamlessly into fall, the only sign of this shift being the disappearance of the tourists. During the summer, the other rental cottages are full of families and couples, the porches littered with surfboards and beach toys, the railings draped with wet swimsuits and brightly colored beach towels. Sometimes a child will line up shells along the balustrade, a parade of treasures. At summer’s end, the kindest mothers will pack these up as they pack up the rest of their things, slipping them into a little plastic bag to be stowed inside a suitcase. The other mothers toss them back toward the sand when the child is busy, hoping they will forget the care with which they were chosen. I understand both inclinations: to hold on and to let go.