I loved the book Cutting for Stone and was so pleased to see another title from this author. And let me tell you, it was worth the wait. An immersive, sweeping, multi-generational family saga set in India. It was a beautiful book with memorable characters and moments. Knowing the author is a doctor makes all of the medical writing so interesting. The characters are resilient and strong and while tragic things happen, the end is hopeful and redemptive. A fantastic read!

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

REVIEW TO FOLLOW.

As I sit here watching my blinking curser, I’m wondering where to start with this book. Man, it was a lot. Good a lot, mostly!

The first thing I noticed was the time investment I’d need to put into it. I didn’t look at how long it was before requesting it on NetGalley, but when I finished the first chapter and my Kindle was telling me it would take 18 more hours to read the whole thing, I just about had a fit 😆. Not only is it over 700 pages, but I also wouldn’t really call it a book that reads quickly. There’s a lot going on that you don’t want to miss, plus quite a few unfamiliar words and names to stumble a little over.

Anyway, once I got over the fact that it was going to take me forever to read, I settled in and was really enjoying it. I really had no idea about the history of South India’s Malabar Coast, so it really was fascinating. It begins with the marriage of a child to a grown man, but she (Big Ammachi) lives with him for several years until anything is consummated. Everything about this was fascinating to read, especially the customs and rules and the overall lay of the land.

Man, Verghese can set a scene. The tropical forests came alive for me, which made it all into a pretty epic movie in my head the whole time. The characters were also like real people to me, like I was there.

There’s a lot of tragedy in this book, but also a lot of beauty, and that juxtaposition makes this book really, truly beautiful. I will say, though, that the tragedy almost got to be too much for me. If I’m going to stick through such a long book, it can’t be all drudgery. Just when things were getting too bleak, though, the story would switch or something would happen to draw me in again.

Speaking of story switching, this book is in chunks. You read one character’s bit, then you move on to another, and another, and then return to the first. While I did enjoy the way all the stories worked together, it was hard to get invested in one story just to be ripped away to one of the other characters’ story lines.

If you read other reviews of The Covenant of Water, you’ll probably find some that are critical of just how much history and politics Verghese jam packs into this book. And, well, they’re right – there’s a lot. For the most part, though, it added to the story. It’s really epic, really involved, and just like a whole historical novel that delivers on the historical bit in a pretty big way.

Then there’s yet another layer: the medical stuff. Just like Cutting for Stone, this novel really holds a lot of truly interesting medical history. I will completely agree with the summary when it says the book is “a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today.” I especially love the mysticism in the beginning of this “condition” that’s passed down from generation to generation and they have no idea what it is, then suddenly in the 70s, the science is there to try to figure it out.

Overall, I loved The Covenant of Water. However, I did knock one star off because it was SO long, SO history and detail packed, and…well, epic. It really is an amazing work of art and an engrossing read, and I do recommend it to anyone who loved Cutting for Stone or likes these kinds of epic literary novels. Just do what I did and listen to a few audiobooks in between some of the cutaways to the other characters to give yourself some time to take it all in.

Not really sure where to begin! A short synopsis can't even begin to cover this sweeping epic that spans eight decades and 700+ pages.

At its core, this is the story about a family that is plagued by drownings; they have a hereditary predisposition to it, passed down through the generations. The family is part of a community of St Thomas Christians based in Kerala in South India, where they live surrounded by water, but the element that brings life, cleanses, and nurtures the land and people. Over three generations, spanning from 1900 through 1977, we see a family plagued by tragedy. But we also see a country, a society, in flux. Moving from colonialism through independence, through movements towards communism, lower castes questioning the lot they've been given, women pushing the boundaries of who society permits them to be.

This book is absolutely gorgeous. Abraham Verghese's writing is so poetic and lyrical, with descriptions that actually gave me chills. I don't have the words to describe just how beautiful some of these passages are. I highlighted the heck out of this e-book, but here's one sliver to illustrate what I mean:

"Just as the ocean manifests as a wave or surf, but neither wave nor surf <i>is</i> the ocean, so also the Creator–God or Brahma–generates an impression of a universe that takes the form of a Swedish doctor, or a blind leper. Rune is real. The leper is real. The fishing net is real. Yet it is all maya, their separateness an illusion. All is one. The universe is nothing but a speck of foam on a limitless ocean that is the Creator. He feels euphoric and unburdened–<i>the peace of God, which passeth all understanding</i>"

The themes discussed in this book were so impactful, as well. The way it wove together colonialism and self-governance, together with intersecting insights on caste, class, gender. Faith and privilege. Progress over time, both societal and personal. It is truly an epic scale when a book opens with a young girl–who would come to be called Big Ammachi–being married off to a stranger at age 12, and by the end of the century has her female descendants studying neurosurgery. I also thought it was interesting how the book comes to frame The Condition, how drowning runs in a family like a hereditary disease.

With that being said, did this book need to be over 700 pages? I don't think so! Readers with a higher tolerance for slow pacing might not mind, but I did find it to drag at times. I breezed through the first 40/50-ish percent before I started to feel that way. I think it started to lose focus a bit, with a lot of tangents that made my interest start to drift. This part can't really be sugar coated: this is a long, slow-paced, sad book.

So, to sum up: I'm very glad I read this, even though I had some trouble with the pacing. I would recommend it to people who are looking to deeply immerse themselves into a long, slow-paced ballad, knowing they'll come out the other end a little dazed, and very sad.

3.5 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for this ARC to read and review.

A wonderful multigenerational account of a family in India who deal with a condition that causes them to fear water. The book proceeds with information about that condition and also about Hansens Disease or leprosy. I loved the author's book Cutting For Stone and this is another great book of a family dealing with an unknown , at least to me, medical condition. This book should be enjoyed by all who enjoy books of family histories, and getting some medical information also. Highly recommended

Cutting For Stone was a magnificent novel, and I couldn't help but wonder if this author could produce another such book. Having just finished its 700+ pages, I applaud him, as he has absolutely produced another masterpiece. Set in the state of Kerala in southern India, and based in part on stories told to him by his own mother (and written out by her for her first granddaughter), The Covenant of Water is a story of a family that over the course of some 70 years experiences joy and pain, success and hardship, sickness, death, and sometimes, near-miraculous recovery. It's a family with secrets, some more widely shared than others, and some held closely among very few. It's filled with wonderful characters, all flawed and imperfect, but each in his or her own way, striving to live the best life they can. The novel also includes a great deal of history, involving both the transformation of India over the course of the 20th century, and changes in the author's own field of medicine as well. The writing is absolutely beautiful throughout. I recommend this book highly and without reservation.

4.5 stars
This book is a tour de force! If you love family sagas, historical fiction, epic drama, and extra chunky page length— look no further! I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect when I started the book but it subtly drew me in and kept me coming back for more. I found myself looking up some of the places and events mentioned over the course of the book. I definitely learned a lot! I didn’t know what was going to happen as I got closer to finishing the book and it definitely took some very unexpected turns at the end. I was shocked! This story will stay with me for a while. I know I’ll be thinking about everyone and revisiting that ending for quite some time!
*Thanks to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for this advance review copy.

Another incredibly beautifully written book from Abraham Verghese! I could not stop reading and loved the multi-generational stories that he weaved together skillfully. There were multiple points were I thought I could predict how the different threads of the story would come together, but in the end, I did not anticipate how everything would match up and was surprised all over again.

I knew a little bit about Christianity in Kerala, leprosy and leper colonies in India, and other topics in the book that I won't mention for fear of spoilers, but discovered so much more reading this book. The back stories for the different characters that lead up to the moment when everything comes together are so rich and fascinating that they really aren't back stories at all while you are reading them.

Will definitely be recommending this book to so many people for so many different reasons!

Thank you Grove Atlantic and Netgalley for sharing Abraham Verghese’s new novel. I enjoyed his previous book, Cutting for Stone but this new work was more engaging to me. I loved the setting and the characters, I quickly felt that I wanted to know these people in my real life. The ending was a bit melodramatic and soap opera like, but that didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the book. Be forewarned, this is a book with a lot of sadness and catastrophes. In that, it reminded me of A Fine Balance. Thoroughly recommend this for any reader of literary fiction.

I found everything about The Covenant of Water to be both intriguing and deeply satisfying fiction. Abraham Verghese has woven a storyline that follows three generations of the Parambil family with deep roots in the “spice coast” of India and an even deeper secret–the peculiar affliction of an unreasonable fear of water and a tragic death by drowning in every generation.

The author’s day job as a physician is manifest in the book’s scope and level of detail in the description of medical procedures and the history of leprosy treatment in India. Too, his own family’s connection to the ancient Christian community founded by Thomas the doubting disciple has informed his references to church and missiological history and his lovely allusions to the Christian Scriptures.

Verghese’s main protagonist, the twelve-year-old bride who ripens into the family matriarch, is only one of the strong women whose passing lives propel the narrative forward. Their days are complicated by British colonialism, the caste system, and their fierce connection to family, and the reader is treated to a front-row seat to the women’s rich, interior lives. Their faith and loyalty are like the water surrounding their dwelling place, ever-present, informing their decisions, and binding them together in ways that do not become apparent until the last page of this deeply satisfying novel is turned.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Grove Press for providing a copy of this book to facilitate my review, which is, of course, offered freely and with honesty.

Thank you to Net Galley for providing an early copy of The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

This dynamic saga of ordinary people surviving in 20th century India features the politics, the medicine, the superstition, the religious beliefs, the arts, the joy and the suffering through a multitude of complex relationships. Each of the main characters is a stand-out on his or her own, and the unifying conclusion makes the 84 chapters so worth the time spent with these characters.

In the beginning, an adolescent female is promised in marriage to a widower twice her age. This man gives her all the time she needs to mature as she cares for his young son and comes to love her husband.. She will come to be known as Big Ammachi. This husband suffers from a hereditary condition about which little is known---drowning and the fear of water. It will not be until generations later that some understanding of the affliction is reached and remedies attempted.

Parallel to this narrative is the story of a young surgeon, forbidden love and its tragic consequences. When he eventually heads a leper colony, his path will cross and be forever intertwined with the family of Big Ammachi.

Abraham Verghese offers many descriptive passages of various surgical procedures that may not be to every reader's liking. Verghese has also chosen to write in a nonlinear narrative style. A consequence of this is that a reader may forget some aspects of the story which may have left off several chapters before.

Abraham Verghese knows his subject and his care and concern are certainly evident in this endeavor.

Abraham Verghese …. This is a man who dangerously stretches the bounds of storytelling. It is hard to believe that he has created another masterpiece as immersive and riveting as his previous novel, Cutting for Stone. In this present case, it paid off for us to be patient. This current saga Is destined for many a keeper shelf. Despite its hefty tone, all 736 pages, reading this novel is like slipping on an old sweater: warm, comforting and all enveloping. This is a three -generation story of individuals living in Kerala, India from the 1900s through the 1970’s. It all begins when a 12 year old girl Is married off to an older widower with a young child. What she doesn't know is that this family has something called the “Condition” in which every generation going back at least 7 years has had one member that has drowned unexpectedly in a puddle, a shallow pond, a stream, or a river. This little girl who grows up to be labeled Big Ammachi (little mother) turns out to be the central maypole around which the other characters revolve. So much is contained within the walls of the book that it would take hours to describe but
the author paints a marvelous mural filled with both warts and beauty. The reader is confronted with caste issues, historical developments, the emotional pain and disfigurement of leprosy, smallpox, typhoid, inadequate health care, surgery, opium addiction, art and literature, monsoons and beyond all love. I have often felt that the people I have met in India, particularly those of the lower castes, are so much “richer” than those in the USA. Perhaps they do not possess our wealth, but they have a richness of spirit that elevates them far beyond us. Care and affection is in abundance in this novel traveling in a slow languid pace like the rivers of Kerala. It is the love and atmospheric prose that keeps the pages turning: it is a novel that gives guidance to living.
This book is simply magisterial and spellbinding. I wish I could give it more stars!!

Since I thought Cutting for Stone was a masterpiece, I really looked forward to this book. It didn’t disappoint, but in my opinion, wasn’t as good as Cutting for Stone. If you like to read about areas of the world that you know little about, history, and medical subjects, Abraham Vergase’s books are for you.
Taking place in southern India through three generations, the characters fly off the page, as does the settings. By his spectacular prose, I could clearly see what type of area they lived in, and felt I knew the characters. There are many, and at the very beginning , I had to make a list of the names and their relationship to each other. Vergese creates a web of situations so when you wonder why a character was created, you know that you will see him/her at another part of the book. As in lots of good friction, there are secrets, which eventually come out. But there are A LOT of secrets in this saga. Do they get tied up in a bow at the end…yes, and they are both shocking and eye opening.
I learned so much in this book…about India, castes, medicine, opiates, etc. and I love books that teach me something new. I highly recommend this book to book lovers.

I read Abraham Verghese’s Cutting for Stone a decade ago, loved it, and have always hoped to read another great novel from this author. Now, at last, this sweeping, multigenerational epic full of loves and losses, faith and forgiveness. It’s a great story from beginning to end. Its various themes, triumphs, and tragedies are woven together in the history of one family living in Kerala, South India, from 1900 to 1977. Verghese is a brilliant writer and his literary strengths shine in his meticulous, vivid descriptions of landscapes and cultures, in the creation of memorable, multifaceted characters, some of which one cannot help but love, and in compelling, old-fashioned storytelling. As most readers may know, Verghese is well-known internal medicine physician and Professor at Stanford, and this book, like Cutting for Stone, is imbued with his devotion to the mysteries and marvels of medicine.

There are so many levels on which this story is affecting, from is overarching themes to its individual personalities, both the troubled and the lovable. I’m grateful that some, like Big Ammachi and Baby Mol, now feel like part of my life. The title relates to an affliction — fear of water and drownings, along with other characteristics — called merely “the Condition,” that plagues the central family, pervades the plot, and accounts for many of the characters’ actions. It appears to be congenital, but its cause is a mystery. The unraveling of that mystery is part of the plot (though, clearly, this is not a mystery novel). I love the way characters (so many!) connect and part and reconnect throughout the book, the rendering of love, its sweetest moments and its sometimes devastating outcomes. And I appreciate the way that the author teaches readers something about how much of any individual life is a consequence of the many generations that have gone before, how history informs the present moment, a theme that is subtly woven into the narrative over and over.

There is a fair amount of switching between one set of characters and another. While at first, this can be (only momentarily) jarring, readers will have the sense that, at some point, all of these lives will somehow flow together. Also, this is a long book (at 756 pages) and at times, I wished for it to move faster or wondered whether it could have been shorter. But for me, the last 20-25% just took off in such a rush that I was unable to stop reading. By its conclusion, I had a new appreciation for all of the story and glad to have read every bit of it. Thinking over my lifetime of reading, few books match this one for value returned on investment. It’s truly magnificent.

My thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic/Grove Press for an advanced reader copy.

Abraham Verghese, is the well known best selling author of Cutting for Stone, The Covenant of Water is his new novel and is set in the State of Kerala, in Southern India,

Beginning in 1900, this novel spans 3 generations (up to the 70's) and focuses upon BIg Ammachi, at first a young girl slated to become the matriarch of a family that she is yet to meet. At age 12 she begins her uneasy relationship with water, one that ties to a medical issue woven throughout the story. You are sure to never forget this story nor it's characters. Be prepared for an intense and moving story, an unforgettable tale and a true work of literature.
#CovenantofWater #AbrahamVerghese #GroveATlantic

i could not get into this book. it wasn’t enjoyable for me. while the setting of kerala is very vivid, the rest of the novel is not. i did not care about digby at all, not even a little, and his chapters were the worst for me. i also really don’t care for novels that are christian-based. just not my preference to read about a colonizer religion.

god this was so boring. if you’re an old person, you might have the patience and understanding that i do not to enjoy this. not for me. it’s just so long.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange for an honest review!

It's been many years since I read Adam Verghese' Cutting for Stone, but I remember it being a page turner that grabbed me from the first page. I was thrilled to see a new book by him and couldn't wait to read it. Unfortunately, I felt lost for about the first third of this book as so many characters presented and several timelines and continents showed up. My experience with the earlier book led me to persevere and I'm so happy that I did. All the pieces came together for me after that first part and I was hooked! The book is set primarily in India and follows several generations of a family. At the core is the search for a cause/cure of a "condition" that shows up in each generation that leads to the death of the individual by drowning. Interesting medical situations, historical treatments, local flavors and customs, politics and romance all present and make it easy for the reader to zoom thru this very hefty tome! I appreciate the opportunity presented by NetGalley to read an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. #TheCovenantofWater. #NetGalley

The Covenant of Water
by Abraham Verghese
Pub Date: May 2, 2023
Grove Press
Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
I had read Cutting for Stone, The Tennis Partner and My Own Country: A Doctor's Story by this author and was quite surprised that this one did not hit the mark for me.
A good, but not great novel by the author of Cutting for Stone. This novel takes several chapters to really get into the various parts of the story. Sadly , a three star read for me.
3 star

A long time to wait for the follow up to the literary masterpiece Cutting For Stone by Vergese.
Well worth the wait.
If you are a fan of family sagas, brilliant writing, different cultures and historical fiction then I highly recommend The Covenant of Water.
The characters are well drawn and the narrative traces one Christian Indian family in what is now Kerala state India over seven decades.
Their hopes, triumphs , tragedies and the impact of the democratic transition from the British colonial rule are all folded into the story of a family that has “water” as both a nemesis and a curse .
I particularly enjoyed the last 1/3 of the book as all the narrative threads came together in a highly believable ending.

A good, but not great novel by the author of Cutting for Stone. This novel takes several chapters to really get into the various parts of the story. Overall, a three star read.