The Color of Water in July is set in Michigan, at the fictional Pine Lake, which is obviously Lake Charlevoix. We have spent many happy days in and around the area so I wanted to enjoy the story. Unfortunately it didn’t hold together for me.
There are several main characters, Jess Carpenter who inherits a lakeside cottage from her grandmother Mamie, Mamie herself who narrates about a third of the book, and Mamie’s sister Lila. The story revolves around events in 1922 when Lila dies swimming across the lake and Mamie ends up with an illegitimate child, Jess’s mother Margaret.
Jess comes back to Michigan to sell the cottage when Mamie dies and brings her boyfriend Russ. I could not find anything to grab onto with Jess. She doesn’t love Russ but she lets him talk her into selling; she doesn’t want the cottage but she remembers wonderful times there; she wanted to be a doctor to help people but ended up a research librarian. She didn’t have much personality.
Mamie had a strong personality but the pivotal event, her claiming Margaret as her own child made no sense whatsoever. Margaret was really Lila’s child, abandoned in the woods. In 1922 there would have been little shame for Mamie to identify Margaret as Lila’s, as Lila was married, and even Lila abandoning the baby could have been brushed off, especially once Lila died.
Mamie’s decision cost her fiance and eventually cost Jess the love she had for Daniel and (another) illegitimate child. Do you see the plot complexities here?
The timeline was very difficult to follow.
1922 Margaret is born
Sometime between 1940 and 1965 Jess is born
18 years later Jess meets Daniel, gets pregnant, learns Daniel is her first cousin (supposedly) and loses one baby to miscarriage and the other to abortion.
15 years after this Jess is now 33 and comes back to Michigan to sell the cottage.
As near as I can figure, Jess would have been 33 sometime in the mid 1980s, yet the book mentions Russ using the internet, which was not exactly the internet we know today. (Remember Compushare and AOL anyone? That’s what we had in the mid 1980s.)
The setting in one of my favorite Michigan places was the best part of the novel. It was interesting seeing the evolution of the exclusive lake association (basically like a homeowners’ association except with servants), and the surrounding towns and trying to match real with fictional places.
Other than the fun Michigan locale, this book left me lukewarm. I won’t look for more by the author.
I read this courtesy of Net Galley and received the Kindle version for free in exchange for an honest review. It’s telling that I just deleted the book from my tablet.
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