The story of this book’s publication in the UK is a long and complicated one, but keeping it simple, Blackwater was first published in 1983 in the US, enveloped in the horror boom of the 1980’s, after Stephen King’s Carrie opened the floodgates for a deluge of horror books (as described in Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks From Hell, much recommended.)
Blackwater was different however in that it seems it was not a book meant to be published for a quick profit. It was complex, literary, nuanced – most things the cheap and cheerful mass of horror books were not. And therefore, perhaps unsurprisingly, when published in the US in 1983 and the UK in 1985 (with an amazingly lurid cover by Corgi Books) it disappeared without too much of a trace.
Since then, although the author died in 1999, the book seems to have become more appreciated. Blackwater has been mentioned by other authors such as Peter Straub and Stephen King as a book that deserves greater merit. Old paperback copies have been resold on websites, not cheaply. (A quick look around the internet shows each part being sold for somewhere between £20 – £40 each.) A lovely, yet eye-wateringly expensive hardback omnibus edition was published by Suntup Editions in 2022, another, still expensive but slightly cheaper, by Valencourt Books in 2017.
So, it is a lovely surprise to see Penguin reissue the book in an affordable edition. And what is more, they’re reissuing it in its original publication form, with the book divided into its original six parts, and each part being published two weeks apart.*
So, what we have is a serial novel, published in small chunks, easily digestible at a mere 200 or so pages a time, building towards its conclusion in the sixth part. It’s a nice idea, and unusual enough these days to get noticed. (Those of you with a long tooth may remember Stephen King’s The Green Mile was first published like this in 1996, as was G W Dahlquist’s The Glass Books of the Dream Weavers in 2013. Going even further back, of course, much of Charles Dickens’ work was published like this in the mid-1800s.)
Please note: I am only reviewing the first part here. I’m going to mention at the start that this book also has a wonderful introduction to the book by contemporary horror writer Nathan Ballingrud, but I would suggest that you read it after you’ve read the book, as it may spoil some of the story.
Personally, I think that Blackwater is best approached by knowing nothing about it at all to start with. This allows McDowell’s prose to do its work and create a mental picture of the place. Like much of the story here, McDowell’s little details slowly build to make this Perdido feel real. (There is a real Perdido, but this is not it.)
With such thoughts in mind, you may think, as I did at first, that it is just a family drama – my initial thoughts were of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, or possibly even Dallas, Knots Landing or Dynasty in its dealings of. On one level, Blackwater is all about familial relationships and power struggles wrapped up in Southern manners, which Perdido’s families seem to echo.
The story focuses on the Caskey family, one of the three main (white) families of Perdido. Ruled with an matriarchal iron hand by Mary-Love, the family consists of Mary-Love, her brother James, her daughter named Sister, (I know!), and son Oscar. James is separated from his wife Genevieve, who lives in Nashville, but has a daughter Grace, who lives with him.
The book begins with a major event in that the town has been flooded. Oscar Caskey and his black servant Bray Sugarwhite are rowing through the town, looking for survivors. They find in a semi-flooded floor of the Osceola Hotel, a young woman, Elinor Dammert. Claiming that she was newly-arrived in Perdido and now without most of her belongings, Elinor is quickly taken in by the Caskey family. Oscar is clearly besotted with her, Grace loves her, especially when she learns that Elinor is to be the town’s new schoolmistress, whilst Mary-Love clearly dislikes her.
Which is where we seem to go all True Detective.
What made this different is that unlike say Stephen King’s increasingly urbanised Maine, this is a book set in Perdido, Alabama, the Deep South of the USA in the early 1900’s. This is important, as it creates somewhere that seems out of touch and a little out of time with what we know. There is an old world feel to this which enhances the other-worldliness of the story. This is a place, after all, where automobiles are new and rare, and most communication is by mail and runner (often one of the black servant children) rather than telephone. It feels as if change rarely happens.
Such lack of technology also emphasises the isolation and the introverted community of the town. Though people do visit other settlements such as Mobile – and often take more than one day to do so – Perdido feels as if it is on its own. Generally, the people in Perdido seem happy with their lot, and there is noticeable shock when change happens, although, oddly, less than you might expect by the arrival of Elinor.
Secondly, the characterization seems spot-on. For all of its southern charm, the local society of the citizens of Perdido highlight the superiority of the white families in Perdido, their matriarchy, their snobbishness, their inheritances and their insistence of the right etiquette. To add to this, for all of this polite order there’s inequality, casual racism (with its constant mention of “Indians” and “blacks”), child beating, and injustice.
There are few weaknesses in the characterization, but Nathan’s introduction also suggests one of them, which I agree with. The black population is not particularly well represented here. Bray seems to do nothing but complain, although it could be said that he has plenty to complain about! In a modern time, and with a more aware readership, I suspect that more would be made of the people living in servitude to their white masters and mistresses. Having said that, it could be argued that such details are typical of both 1919-20 and possibly even 1983, when the book was first published, even when they are simplified down to caricature. There are hints that these old attitudes are seen as wrong, and it will be interesting to see whether the story continues to reflect this as the story continues over time – I suspect it will.
Most of all, and indeed over all of this, there is the enigma that is Elinor Dammert. Who (or what) is she? Why is she in Perdido? What influence does she have over the Caskey family? And as much as we get to dislike Mary-Love for all of her Machiavellian actions and her judgemental attitude, as readers we also know that she’s right about one thing. There’s something odd about Elinor.
Ahead of its time in some ways – there a character who appears to be homosexual though it is never explicit – and yet dated in others, Blackwater shows us a world that is beyond ours. Oddly-infected language and stereotypical old-world cultural types give this an other-worldly air, something beyond our time; and with strange events going on, Perdido is an odd place, about to become odder.
Overall, this first part of Blackwater slowly builds both its setting and its characters. It’s a slow burn story, but by the end of the first part I really wanted to read the next part straight away, as it’s clear that after all of this setting up of the plot, things are about to happen. Now that I have a knowledge of the Caskey family and Perdido, the story has now hooked me enough to want to know what happens to these characters next. I suspect things are only going to get worse for the family. I look forward to the next part.
*Blackwater II: The Levee will be published on 19th September, with Blackwater III: The House on the 3rd October.
BLACKWATER (Part 1) by Michael McDowell
Published by Penguin Books (Transworld)
240 pages
ISBN: 978-1804996379
Review by Mark Yon