WATER FROM MY HEART, by author, CHARLES MARTIN, recommended by author, Normandie Fischer

Author / Writer / Book Lover - which are you?

NF ~ All of the above! How can one write without reading voraciously?

Title of Fiction book and year published

WATER FROM MY HEART published May, 2015

Author name

Charles Martin

Type of book

Contemporary fiction

What is it about this book that pulled you in?

NF ~ I love Charles Martin’s work, and this is one of his most powerful. All of Martin’s characters have issues and idiosyncrasies, but nothing like Charlie Finn’s anti-social, anti-heroic behavior. I wanted to smack some sense into the man, but most of all, I wanted to know what this brilliant author was going to do with Charlie the drug dealer, Charlie the untouched and untouchable. I knew the author had a plan, and I wanted to know what it was--the what, how, when, and why of Charlie Finn. As one relationship after another unfolded, one life choice after another revealed the lies Charlie told himself, I turned the pages, hating that moment when I’d have to surrender my reading time to the obligations of life.

You know it’s a good book when the questions pile and you have to know what comes next. What would be the catalyst for change? How would Martin set the stage for it? And what exactly would that change be?

Is there a relationship in the story that resonated with you?

NF ~ In my own work, I write a lot about choices: how they affect us, how they determine our future, whether or not the negative consequences of those choices can be undone. Charles Martin is a superlative storyteller. When he presents a character’s choices and their consequences, we get it. We want to yell or cheer, to hope or weep right along with the actor on that story’s stage. I can’t just pick one relationship here; they all affected me. But the generational choices—combined with our hero’s—that sent a teenage boy spiraling out of control touched my mother’s heart. How would Charlie fix this? And could he?

Then there were Paulo and his niece, Paulina, the Nicaraguans whose life lessons so powerfully affected our anti-hero. These two, more than any others, showed Charlie a way out and a way back through lives lived sacrificially.

Do you think that relationship was portrayed realistically?

NF ~ Charles Martin could write from the point of view of a cockroach and make it believable. He’s that good.

Anything else you want to tell us about the book?

NF ~ The title is so provocative, don’t you think? Water is not only essential to life, but it evokes so many images—especially for me, a sailor. If you’ve ever visited a place where you’re surrounded by water and yet have nothing potable to drink, you’ve experienced another layer of what it means to thirst.

Charles Martin’s characters thirst for life-giving water for their flesh and for their soul. We all have a place in us that yearns for soul-water, although we don’t all recognize it. That Charles can portray this search again and again, through different characters in different books—and portray it in ways that make me weep and laugh and even want to dance—is nothing short of remarkable.

If author or writer, your social media links:

https://www.facebook.com/NormandieFischer

https://twitter.com/WritingOnBoard

http://www.normandiefischer.com

JHA ~ Thanks so much, Normandie, for recommending this new release! (And your comment about Charles writing from a cockroach POV is intriguing!) ;)

Attention readers ~ Have YOU read this book?  If so, tell us what YOU thought of it!

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