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rellimreads's review against another edition
5.0
Box set of the whole series of novellas. Complete series.
Historical American/Southern Gothic with an interesting horror-ish element. It did take me almost the entire length of Part One: The Flood to get into the story (admittedly this isn’t my typical genre) - but once I did, I was hooked. Just over 30 hours and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Nothing. Absolutely nothing was predictable for me.
Blackwater spans 50 years (starting in 1919), several generations of family members and their sometimes contentious relationships, southern small/rural town living.
While the description talks about Elinor’s true form/history - I found that to be just a small part of what was intriguing/compelling about following the Caskey family. It’s a wild family tree, each quirky member bringing something unique, and not everyone behaves/reacts as expected.
CW: (possible spoilers) Several characters die, some are horrific and details range from benign to fairly descriptive. Two characters are raped. While the act isn’t described, some details are and aftermath for both is long-term.
Matt Godfrey was a new narrator for me. I truly enjoyed his performance. His accents, voices, and emotions were wonderful. McDowell gave him a HUGE cast of characters to work with and he did a wonderful job. I’m looking forward to more for both of them.
Historical American/Southern Gothic with an interesting horror-ish element. It did take me almost the entire length of Part One: The Flood to get into the story (admittedly this isn’t my typical genre) - but once I did, I was hooked. Just over 30 hours and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Nothing. Absolutely nothing was predictable for me.
Blackwater spans 50 years (starting in 1919), several generations of family members and their sometimes contentious relationships, southern small/rural town living.
While the description talks about Elinor’s true form/history - I found that to be just a small part of what was intriguing/compelling about following the Caskey family. It’s a wild family tree, each quirky member bringing something unique, and not everyone behaves/reacts as expected.
CW: (possible spoilers) Several characters die, some are horrific and details range from benign to fairly descriptive. Two characters are raped. While the act isn’t described, some details are and aftermath for both is long-term.
Matt Godfrey was a new narrator for me. I truly enjoyed his performance. His accents, voices, and emotions were wonderful. McDowell gave him a HUGE cast of characters to work with and he did a wonderful job. I’m looking forward to more for both of them.
pedanticpenchant's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
qjbrown96's review against another edition
3.0
2.5 ⭐️
This book was so frustrating. The prose is very good and he just sweeps you off your feet into this early 20th century eccentric Alabama family. The horror elements of this book were so subtle you would miss most of it if you weren’t paying attention. The books consists of 6 parts and each one includes a single graphic death scene, the rest is all storytelling setting an ominous tone. I really didn’t enjoy any of the parts that meant but I wanted to figure out what the hell was going on so bad. I eventually just started skimming the last few hundred pages to get it over with. I can see why people may like this but definitely not worth reading almost 800 pages over. I was expecting a super horrific ending with all my questions answered it went out with a puny whimper.
There’s also random supernatural elements to this which I don’t understand. Is this a river monster book or a ghost book? Does the river monster have abilities to conjure ghosts? I DONT KNOW
This book was so frustrating. The prose is very good and he just sweeps you off your feet into this early 20th century eccentric Alabama family. The horror elements of this book were so subtle you would miss most of it if you weren’t paying attention. The books consists of 6 parts and each one includes a single graphic death scene, the rest is all storytelling setting an ominous tone. I really didn’t enjoy any of the parts that meant but I wanted to figure out what the hell was going on so bad. I eventually just started skimming the last few hundred pages to get it over with. I can see why people may like this but definitely not worth reading almost 800 pages over. I was expecting a super horrific ending with all my questions answered it went out with a puny whimper.
There’s also random supernatural elements to this which I don’t understand. Is this a river monster book or a ghost book? Does the river monster have abilities to conjure ghosts? I DONT KNOW
superflydwyer's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
cherylnos's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
5.0
lucas_lex_dejong's review against another edition
2.5
This post won't contain many spoilers beyond themes and genre.
Michael McDowell's Blackwater Saga was published in 6 short volumes (each <200 pages); its narrative spanning the years 1919 to the late 1960s in Perdido, Alabama.
The saga is regularly described as both horror and southern gothic. There's no need to define horror to this audience, but Gothic as a genre tends to deal with the anxiety and anticipation around archaic power structures fading away, whether religious (Lewis' The Monk or Radcliffe's The Italian), Feudal (The Castle of Otranto or the Mystery of Udolpho), or, in the case of Southern Gothic, slave-economy, which is often explored with post-civil war families decaying in the wake of abolition and the waning cotton trade (the decrepit plantation houses of Faulkner, or the painful integration of Flannery O'Connor).
Blackwater is not Southern Gothic. In fact, for first 90% of the novel has the Caskey's going from strength to strength, success to success, regardless of post slavery economics, two world wars, a great depression, and civil rights movements. Nothing touches them, and without going into spoilers, the ending does not set up a grand Fall, nor an accountability for their social position.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say it has an offensively revisionist view of race, sexuality, and gender norms, given the time period it's set it. It seems nearly everbody is fine with being whoever they want to be and who they want to be with, and in the 50 year span of the saga, the black servant family is never raised as a question of ethics or evolves in any way. Every generation is just so gosh darn eager to serve the Caskey's, coz they good folks.
On a line-by-line basis the saga is competently written; I wouldnt have finished it otherwise. The characters are each unique, but the 3rd person omniscient narration is more detached than usual, and entire years are breezed over in the same historical prose as the actual action, and makes investment in the drama difficult to achieve. As for the horror elements...? I'm personally convinced that they were a late addition to the drafting of the saga and that the series would have been improved by more ambiguity; as it is, the horror elements pop up occasionally like a jack in the box, disappear, and barely affect the continued plot.
I can't say that I *hated* it; as mentioned before, I wouldn't have read a book this long, over 3 months, if that were so. But every element of it was so neutered and undercooked that by the ending, I was pretty underwhelmed by what McDowell had to say about 50 years of Alabama society, where his foreword denoted that his aim was to "describe the people as they *are*".
A disappointment, to be sure, given my love of both Horror and Southern Gothic.
Michael McDowell's Blackwater Saga was published in 6 short volumes (each <200 pages); its narrative spanning the years 1919 to the late 1960s in Perdido, Alabama.
The saga is regularly described as both horror and southern gothic. There's no need to define horror to this audience, but Gothic as a genre tends to deal with the anxiety and anticipation around archaic power structures fading away, whether religious (Lewis' The Monk or Radcliffe's The Italian), Feudal (The Castle of Otranto or the Mystery of Udolpho), or, in the case of Southern Gothic, slave-economy, which is often explored with post-civil war families decaying in the wake of abolition and the waning cotton trade (the decrepit plantation houses of Faulkner, or the painful integration of Flannery O'Connor).
Blackwater is not Southern Gothic. In fact, for first 90% of the novel has the Caskey's going from strength to strength, success to success, regardless of post slavery economics, two world wars, a great depression, and civil rights movements. Nothing touches them, and without going into spoilers, the ending does not set up a grand Fall, nor an accountability for their social position.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say it has an offensively revisionist view of race, sexuality, and gender norms, given the time period it's set it. It seems nearly everbody is fine with being whoever they want to be and who they want to be with, and in the 50 year span of the saga, the black servant family is never raised as a question of ethics or evolves in any way. Every generation is just so gosh darn eager to serve the Caskey's, coz they good folks.
On a line-by-line basis the saga is competently written; I wouldnt have finished it otherwise. The characters are each unique, but the 3rd person omniscient narration is more detached than usual, and entire years are breezed over in the same historical prose as the actual action, and makes investment in the drama difficult to achieve. As for the horror elements...? I'm personally convinced that they were a late addition to the drafting of the saga and that the series would have been improved by more ambiguity; as it is, the horror elements pop up occasionally like a jack in the box, disappear, and barely affect the continued plot.
I can't say that I *hated* it; as mentioned before, I wouldn't have read a book this long, over 3 months, if that were so. But every element of it was so neutered and undercooked that by the ending, I was pretty underwhelmed by what McDowell had to say about 50 years of Alabama society, where his foreword denoted that his aim was to "describe the people as they *are*".
A disappointment, to be sure, given my love of both Horror and Southern Gothic.
scorpion_221's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0