We Are Water

From New York Times bestselling author Wally Lamb, a disquieting and ultimately uplifting novel about a marriage, a family, and human resilience in the face of tragedy.

As her wedding day approaches, Annie Oh finds herself one morning staring at a bed covered in Vera Wang wedding dresses, at the mercy of hopes and fears about the momentous change on the horizon. This is not Annie's first walk down the aisle. She has just emerged from a twenty-seven year marriage to Orion Oh, which produced three children: twins Andrew and Ariane, and daughter Marisa. Annie has been trying to reach her ex-husband, as she wants to make sure that he is all right. Orion, a psychologist with a crippling need to help others, keeps assuring everyone that he is fine. But how can he be?

Annie, a self-taught artist, is about to marry a woman named Viveca, the sophisticated and seductive art dealer who understands her work and has helped make her enormously successful. The Oh children have different responses to their mother's upcoming wedding and her new partner. But when Viveca, who specialises in outsider art, discovers a painting by Josephus Jones, a self-taught African American artist of the 1950s and '60s, in the Oh family home in Three Rivers, Connecticut, the already difficult relationship between Orion, Annie, and Viveca becomes even more fraught. Jones's canvases, and the story of his prematurely shortened life, come to play an unexpected role in the life of the Oh family. On the very day of the wedding, as its members struggle with their new roles in the reshaped family landscape, secrets are shared and shocking truths come to light.

A sweeping epic novel from one of America's most beloved writers, We Are Water pulls you into the emotional centre of each richly drawn character. Even Annie's impending marriage, apparently the source of the Oh family drama, turns out to be merely the catalyst that uncovers old hurts and renews past anger. An intricate and layered portrait of marriage and family, tempered by compassion, big-heartedness, and humour, We Are Water recalls Richard Russo's Empire Falls and Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. Once again, Wally Lamb has dug down deep into the complexities of the human heart to explore the ways in which we all live, love, and find meaning in our lives.