SweetWater

Christina Baker Kline

Each discovery propels more questions. Why did Ellen let her father drive her into town that night when she
knew he was drunk? Why does Clyde seem so withdrawn and nervous as Cassie settles into the house? Is
it just a coincidence that Clyde’s best friend, Bryce Davies, drowned only a few weeks before Ellen’s death?
And why did Amory leave Cassie this house in the first place?

The climax of SWEET WATER reveals the desperate measures the human heart is capable of, the damage
that unresolved guilt and buried secrets can inflict, and the redemptive power of memory and forgiveness.

Reviews:

Literary Guild Alternate selection
Barnes and Noble Discover Award finalist
Readers Digest Condensed Book
Kline named one of the most promising new novelists of the year by Library Journal

“Kline blends satisfying storytelling skills with psychological chills. This book is filled with secrets – as well
as love, hate, revenge, and guilt. Highly recommended.”
-- Library Journal

”Kline’s first novel is a captivating read. . . . In alternating sections told from their respective points of
view, Cassie and her grandmother fight their separate battles to cope with the truth about the tragedy that
marks both of their lives. Kline perfectly renders each woman's voice: Cassie's, probing and often
uncertain, propels the narrative and creates an appropriate level of psychological suspense; the
grandmother's quavers with the weight of memory as Cassie's search forces her beyond family myth to a
painful and perhaps dangerous truth. The result is a powerful, immensely readable tale of loyalty and
betrayal, family and memory, made fresh by Kline's often beautiful and always lucid prose.”
-- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“The family arena, so rich in emotions and dramatic possibilities, is the setting, and SWEET WATER, with its
dark secrets and charged atmosphere, could easily have gone over the top. But Kline skirts the pitfalls of
her material nicely. Cassie’s natural voice sets the tone. A thoughtful, humorous, believable woman, she
holds our attention until the end.”
-- Cleveland Plain Dealer

”SWEET WATER is one of those books that is a discovery. I started it because it’s set in Sweetwater,
Tennessee. I read it through because it sings … The novel shifts back and forth between the voices of
Cassie and her grandmother Clyde, and Clyde’s voice flows like music … A story of the small-town South
that rings with poetry and truth.”
-- Knoxville News Sentinel

“An impressive first novel.”
-- Orlando Sentinel

“What makes Christina Baker Kline’s first novel, SWEET WATER, go is Cassie’s persistent uncovering of
family secrets … Kline’s use of Cassie and Clyde as alternating narrators give the story added dimension,
the young woman’s eager pursuit of the facts juxtaposed nicely against the old woman’s bitter
retrospectives. Kline keeps us glued to the page.”
-- Boston Globe

“Evocative writing.”
-- New York Times Book Review

“A captivating read … Kline perfectly renders each woman’s voice … The result is a powerful, immensely
readable tale of loyalty and betrayal, family and memory, made fresh by Kline’s often beautiful and always
lucid prose.”
-- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A compelling psychological study of bitterness, guilt and fear.”
-- Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Sweet Water, by Christina Baker Kline (HarperCollins):

Described as both a Southern literary saga and a psychological thriller, this
beautifully wrought novel unfolding a daughter's search for the truth about
her mother's death marks the debut of an extraordinary writer. A
mysterious bequest, a mother’s terrible death, and a daughter’s search for
the truth about the past yields taut suspense in this powerful first novel.
Told in the alternating voices of Cassie, an artist, and Clyde, her Southern
grandmother, Kline vividly captures the cultural differences between the
North and the South, as well as the generation gap between the two
women.

Cassie Simon, a young sculptor living in New York, is tired of the city.
When her grandfather, Amory, dies and leaves her his house in
Sweetwater, Tennessee, she takes it as a sign and decides to move to the
little town where her mother, Ellen, was born – and where she died
tragically when Cassie was three. So begins a spiritual and emotional
quest of rare power, as Cassie attempts to unravel the Clyde family myths
about the accident that shattered their lives.

As Cassie delves into the thicket of mystery that surrounds her mother’s
death, Clyde determines to keep the truth – or what she thinks is the truth
– from her granddaughter. The closer Cassie gets to unraveling the family
myths, the more the reader understands the internal battles each woman
fights as she comes to terms with Ellen’s untimely death.

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Sweet Water