 | The Covenant of Water is a sprawling generational epic set in southern India. It spans 1900 through 1977, as the country evolves from the British occupation through independence. The novel is focused primarily on a family in Travancore on the western Malabar coast, but detours with several characters to the city of Madras (now Chennai) on the east coast of the continent. The point-of-view characters are of British descent or land-owning Indians, though revolutionaries and the lower castes are represented as secondary characters. |
 | The story begins with a twelve-year-old girl on her wedding day. Her husband is a forty-year-old widower, and both bride and groom are part of a Christian sect with indigenous elements. The husband’s sister helps the new bride learn to cook and manage the household. There were a lot of native language cooking terms in this section, which distanced me from the story. We follow the new bride over the next eight years through grief at the loss of loved ones and the birth of her daughter. We also learn that her husband’s family has a “Condition” that makes them averse to water. Many family members have drowned, some in mere inches of water. The bride will pray for a cure to this “Condition,” which will be a theme throughout the book. |
 | Our next point-of-view character is a young doctor from working-class Glasgow, Scotland, named Digby. He arrives in Madras to serve in a small hospital run by a snobbish upper-class British alcoholic. When the boss screws up a simple procedure, Digby’s testimony at the subsequent trial will derail his career. A tragic fire sends Digby away from Madras before the trial to convalesce with old friends in Travancore. |
Throughout the novel, the author expertly creates memorable characters whose lives intersect in surprising yet seemingly inevitable ways. The bride’s son marries a woman who helped Digby recuperate from the fire when she was a child. Their daughter (the bride's granddaughter) becomes a surgeon and, with Digby’s help, saves the life of a young man whose pregnant mother Digby rescued years earlier.
There were point-of-view characters who played a relatively small role in the story, but generally this didn't detract from the overall narrative.
There were point-of-view characters who played a relatively small role in the story, but generally this didn't detract from the overall narrative.
 | As the novel progresses the characters' overlapping lives become more entwined, spiraling tighter and tighter to a shocking yet entirely satisfying conclusion. In the author’s acknowledgments and notes at the end of the book, he describes his personal ties to India and gives specific inspirations for some of the book’s most compelling elements. |
The Covenant of Water was an Oprah’s Book Club selection and it’s easy to understand how this novel—tragic, triumphant, and lyrically beautiful—would appeal to a wide swath of readers. It’s a door stopper at 724 pages, but worth the commitment.
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