Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Essayist ( Angel in the Parlor ), children's author ( A Visit to William Blake's Inn ) and novelist ( Things Invisible to See ) Willard's gift for seamlessly mixing the magical and the mundane puts her in the company of Anne Tyler and Alice Hoffman. But perhaps it is her poet's eye ( Water Walker ) that infuses her work with intense lyricism and the power to wring the reader's heart with a phrase or an image. Here she fashions a moving story about a family in crisis and the power of love to transcend reality and ``open a doorway into the spirit world.'' At age 15, Jessie Nelson had a vision of the angel of death during a tornado in Drowning Bear, Wis. The widowed Jessie, now in her 70s, and her two married daughters and two grandchildren live in Ann Arbor, where the family owns a museum that harbors a meandering stream and historical artifacts of the region bounded by rivers. Jessie's growing senility forces her daughters (one of whom loses her husband as the narrative begins) to hire mystic Sam Theopolis as their mother's live-in caretaker. Sam's benign, healing presence is balanced by the brooding attentions of unscrupulous developer Harvey Mack, who wants to buy the museum and erect a shopping mall on land where the river tribe of Pawquacha Indians (``water is their occupation'') lived and died. In Willard's gently whimsical plot, two modern-day Pawquachas (and their animal counterparts, a toad and a turtle) play parts in rescuing Sam from peril and allowing love to flourish. Willard's intimacy with magic as well as her acutely observant eye for domestic routine blend to create an enchanting story. (May)
Library Journal
What is it that inspires authors to write delightful novels about the heartland? To W.P. Kinsella's musings about Johnson County, Iowa ( The Iowa Baseball Confederacy , Houghton, 1986), and Robert Waller's romp in The Bridges of Madison County ( LJ 3/1/92), we can add Willard's parable of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Ann Arbor becomes a place of magic; here, for instance, a vagrant living on the streets by day becomes a toad at night. In the hands of a mediocre writer this would be silly, but Willard shares Kinsella's mastery of imagery. Her description of the lights being turned off in a room is one example: ``With each click a shovelful of darkness dropped over them.'' Behind all this wonderment lie the final days of Jessie Woolman as she watches her daughters Martha and Ellen come to grips with their selfhood after Ellen's husband dies in a car accident. The market for the Midwest novel may be crowded at the moment, but this work by the author of Things Invisible To See ( LJ 12/84) and Water Walker ( LJ 6/1/89) is a highly recommended purchase.-- Randall L. Schroeder, Augustana Coll. Lib., Rock Island, Ill.
Chicago Tribune
Imagine Marc Chagall as a novelist-creating works entirely of gorgeous, sunlit water and magical, poignant creatures-and you'll have an idea what it's like to read Sister Water."
New York Times
Captivating. . . . A luminous, lyrical novel about familial love and loss that almost literally hums with the power of her language."
Booklist
Willard's literary gifts grace this novel with a remarkable immanence. . . . Once immersed in the Woolmans' lives, the pure and magical state of being that surrounds these perfectly drawn characters surrounds the reader, as well."
|Los Angeles Times
Lilting, wacky, wistful. . . Willard possesses a delightfully wry voice, but she also has an ear for whimsy. Fiction lovers who don't quite believe in wings might take a chance on this novel anyhow: Only dedicated stone hearts will get to the end without melting, just a little bit."
New York Times Book Review
Willard's invention and lyricism, the splash of her wit, the glancing slyness of her dialogue, all have the fresh breath of a first-rate winner."
Los Angeles Times
Lilting, wacky, wistful. . . Willard possesses a delightfully wry voice, but she also has an ear for whimsy. Fiction lovers who don't quite believe in wings might take a chance on this novel anyhow: Only dedicated stone hearts will get to the end without melting, just a little bit."
Chicago Tribune
Imagine Marc Chagall as a novelist-creating works entirely of gorgeous, sunlit water and magical, poignant creatures-and you'll have an idea what it's like to read Sister Water."
Booklist
Willard's literary gifts grace this novel with a remarkable immanence. . . . Once immersed in the Woolmans' lives, the pure and magical state of being that surrounds these perfectly drawn characters surrounds the reader, as well."
