Get Swept Up in a Masterful Tale
By M. CLARE HAEFNER | Cover courtesy of the publisher
Of all the books I have read in the past year, The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese (Grove Atlantic, May 2023) is hands-down my favorite.
In 1900 on South India’s Malabar Coast, a 12-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-standing St. Thomas Christian community is sent by boat to her wedding, where she meets her 40-year-old husband for the first time.
It’s a new beginning for the girl who will become the family’s matriarch, affectionately known as Big Ammachi, as she takes up the mantle of filling in “the water tree,” a secret manuscript that bears an account of Parambil’s inexplicable affliction: in every generation at least one family member living on the estate dies by drowning. Her husband has a powerful fear of water, choosing to walk in a region where rivers and canals are the fastest means of transportation.
As time passes, Big Ammachi has one prayer, that God “heal the Condition or send someone who can.”
In the ensuing pages, Verghese masterfully weaves an epic narrative of family, faith, secrets and transformation that slowly reveals itself as a finished masterpiece as Big Ammachi’s granddaughter and namesake, Mariamma, pieces the truth together and comes to learn about the covenant of water — “that they’re all linked inescapably by their acts of commission and omission, and no one stands alone. … All is one.”
Spanning 77 years, The Covenant of Water also offers a window into India’s transformation from a British colony to an independent nation struggling to let of a caste system and its inherent prejudices that prevent some of India’s poorest people from meeting their basic needs, including medical care.
Interwoven with Big Ammachi and her family at Parambil are the stories of two foreign doctors — a Swede who reopens a refuge for lepers and a Scot seeking a new start. Discovering how their lives all intersect across three generations by the book’s end in the late 1970s proves Verghese’s prowess as a master storyteller.
India itself is a multicolored tapestry, a mix of faiths, ethnicities and languages, and Verghese shows how the threads are connected to create a vibrant culture that’s full of promise despite its past.
Though it’s a work of fiction, The Covenant of Water draws on deeper truths that resonate within every community, regardless of time or place, making the book a powerful force that leaves a lasting impression.
It made me think about America’s struggles to reconcile its segregated past to usher in a more perfect union. And I think about my own family’s story, our secrets, our beliefs, our foundation and the legacy we’ll leave.
Like the water flowing across the planet, we’re all connected, if we will only open our eyes to see the truth.
