 | The writing in The Spear Cuts through Water is phenomenal. The narrative weaves between a modern-day character and a cigarette-rolling grandmother (told in the second-person “you”), a third-person narrative (“he,” “they”) of two young men and an empress-goddess set in ancient times, and passages throughout told in first-person (“I,” “me”) revealing thoughts of various characters and ghosts. The juxtaposition of these diverse literary points of view gives the novel a dream-like quality. The story world is grim and harsh, a violent dystopia where hopes are crushed and suffering is legion—yet life persists and even flourishes. |
The present-day unnamed “You” navigates loss, betrayal, and abject poverty, yet reamins a romantic. The character has listened to enough of their grandmother’s tales to have some understanding when they enter an inverted dreamworld theater:
“How old you are outside this dream is irrelevant; in this theater you are as you feel—a youth, deep in your adolescence, and, like all youths, lonely in your own unnamable way.”
Here the character describes one of the more gruesome aspects of this grimdark world:
“[You said] That they only ever ate the dead, and when they did, it was out of a sense of duty and love, not hunger. You said it was usually only women in power, like a local governor or lord, or emperor. That the practice dated back to a time of eld, when a new god would replace an old one in the pantheon, devouring their flesh, and in doing so, taking in themselves the old god’s memories, and their power.”
The grace this character experiences in the dream-theater doesn’t translate into their everyday life, although they do become a reader surrogate at the end of the book, demanding a reckoning of loose ends in the plot.
“How old you are outside this dream is irrelevant; in this theater you are as you feel—a youth, deep in your adolescence, and, like all youths, lonely in your own unnamable way.”
Here the character describes one of the more gruesome aspects of this grimdark world:
“[You said] That they only ever ate the dead, and when they did, it was out of a sense of duty and love, not hunger. You said it was usually only women in power, like a local governor or lord, or emperor. That the practice dated back to a time of eld, when a new god would replace an old one in the pantheon, devouring their flesh, and in doing so, taking in themselves the old god’s memories, and their power.”
The grace this character experiences in the dream-theater doesn’t translate into their everyday life, although they do become a reader surrogate at the end of the book, demanding a reckoning of loose ends in the plot.
 | Of the two young men accompanying the empress-goddess in the historical part of the story, one-armed Keema is the most endearing. Keema is a young man of honor and great passion. Yearning to see Keema complete and survive his impossible quest (to deliver the goddess and a fabled spear across the country) kept me invested in his part of the story. Keema’s counterpart is Jun, a proud young man wracked by guilt, who has sworn to serve the empress-goddess. One of her conversations with him: “Long ago, people had an easier time hearing the Rhythm than they do now. Their bodies tuned to the earth. The empress said that Jun would probably never be able to hear the Rhythm. That he was only human. She said it with a sneer.” |
The backstory of these two young men and other characters in the book, including the enigmatic goddess, are revealed at critical junctures as their quest to transverse the hostile landscape unfolds. We meet the Three Terrors, the emperor’s powerful and cruel royal sons. Each has redeeming and reprehensible qualities: the First Terror is a loving father who pits his sons against each other (to the death); the Second Terror is a sensitive artist and sadist, the Third Terror longs for love yet revels in torture.
 | This is a world with a long history, as the empress-goddess explains: “Believe me only when I say that the world back then was like that of the ripest berry, swollen and bursting in the teeth…Those were the days when the animal castes still populated the fields and forests, strong in number, their homes not yet cut down for their timber, their burrows not burned out for their metals. When the bears and wolves still commanded the mountains and the rivers still bucked with shimmering fish.” |
Despite the obscene violence and ugliness surrounding them, Keema and Jun strive to create a better world. Their dogged persistence, and the bond that forms between them, creates the heart of the novel.
The intense cruelty and brutality of this novel will be off-putting for many readers, as will the mosaic of literary styles. But if you choose to read to the end, the final few pages are cathartic and beautiful.
Winner of the 2023 Crawford Award and the 2023 British Fantasy Award, The Spear Cuts through Water, is a tour-de-force of writing set in a gruesome world that nonetheless remains a hopeful love story.
The intense cruelty and brutality of this novel will be off-putting for many readers, as will the mosaic of literary styles. But if you choose to read to the end, the final few pages are cathartic and beautiful.
Winner of the 2023 Crawford Award and the 2023 British Fantasy Award, The Spear Cuts through Water, is a tour-de-force of writing set in a gruesome world that nonetheless remains a hopeful love story.
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