Reviewed by William Ashanti Hobbs
“Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.” -Helen Keller
It is unclear whether protagonist Ishmael Kidder is able to see the complexity of his life before the rape and murder of his 11-year-old daughter, Lane. One thing is certain; his vision of it after the calculated murder of Reggie W., his daughter’s killer, is disturbingly clear. Percival Everett’s overly restrained, newly released novel The Water Cure, explores a flawed man’s attempt at justice and maintaining his sanity in a modern world seemingly devoid of any.
Kidder comes off as a fairly convincing embodiment of the modern disconnect many feel with their fellow human beings in today’s society. Although a wordsmith by trade, Kidder is struck dumb trying to explain his reasons for putting an end to a comfortable marriage. He exacerbates his isolation by refusing food from restaurants, travel by plane, and the use of telephones.
Kidder struggles as a man in profound grief. God’s role in the order of things is called into question repeatedly as he wrestles with his guilt of being unable to protect his daughter. The pain is so intense Kidder switches mid-sentence from his first-person narrative to third-person when his new girlfriend Sally inquires if he has spoken with his ex-wife Charlotte lately. The reader discovers how deeply Kidder has compartmentalized his psyche. He is unable to recall whether he committed adultery or just imagined it while looking back on the end of his marriage to Charlotte.
The story quickly breaks out of any chronological order soon after Kidder shares the details of his daughter’s passing. From then on, Kidder jumps forward and back through past events in the way that someone struggling with the death of a loved one is revisited by dogged memories. Kidder attempts to make sense of what has taken place with desperate associations to Greek sophists, democracy, Freud, terrorism, and the Bush administration.
Unaffected drawings by Kidder are included in the novel as part of the plot. There are illustrations of Lane jumping on a trampoline under the California sun, the ditch in which Lane was found, and her body at the coroner. Kidder’s self-portraits, on the other hand, are cubist-looking, asymmetrical drawings of eyes and parts of faces scattered in various directions. Just as the features of such art intersect at seemingly indiscriminate angles and offer no coherent sense of depth, it is difficult to gauge Kidder’s pain. Everett ups the stakes of Kidder’s need to both conceal and reveal when the justice system fails in prosecuting and convicting Reggie. Sketches of American flags set ablaze and dismembered stick figures expose the ineffable rage of giving up on the country and humanity.
When the abduction and torture of Reggie W. commences in the author’s basement, Kidder delights himself with made-up nursery rhymes as though he himself were an unforgiving childhood friend of his daughter:
There once was a man with a daughter,
Who returned home to learn of her slaughter.
He found her assailant,
And slowly did drown him in water.
The reference to drowning speaks to the novel’s title. The water cure, Kidder’s choice of torture, is when the immobilized victim suffers a near drowning, only to be revived and put through it repeatedly. Kidder chooses the version called waterboarding. This involves strapping Reggie W’s back to a fir plank and pouring gallons of water over his blindfolded face as he gagged for air. Kidder uses this technique because it is ideal in causing no cuts, scratches, or bruises: “no trace, no evidence.” His chosen form of torture renders Reggie W’s body as a canvas that remains as clean as a blank piece of paper. But then the temptation to kill comes into play, a temptation Kidder gives in to after long stetches of rationalizing.
The Water Cure is a worthwhile read made difficult when expecting to get beyond Kidder’s dry, reflexive intellectualizing. Everett has brought forth a character unconcerned with gaining compassion. This puts Kidder in tradition with the anti-hero no longer looking for justice from faith in society. Kidder appears to save such soulful moments for soliloquies to his daughter’s killer–leaving the reader to be satiated with hints of it awash puddles of rope, duct tape, blood, and super glue.