The Sweetness of Water

Nathan Harris’s debut novel made an immediate splash—Oprah picked it for her book club, President Barack Obama named it in his list of summer favorites and it was long-listed for the Booker Prize. It’s easy to see why. The sprawling work of historical fiction, set in a fictional Georgia town at the end of the Civil War, is impossible to put down. It follows a cast of fully realized characters on interconnected journeys: Prentiss and Landry, brothers recently freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, are working to save enough money to reunite with their mother up north; their employer, George Walker, is mourning the death of his son; two white Confederate soldiers are hiding an affair. It’s an ambitious story about humanity, prejudice and resilience, and the question at its core—how does a nation split by violently opposing beliefs come together?—is as urgent as ever.

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