THE WAYS OF WATER

Janssen presents a coming-of-age tale based on true events, set in the early 20th-century American Southwest.

Josie Belle Gore isn’t the oldest but she’s clearly the boldest child in her family. At the age of 6, for example, she uses a rope to retrieve the corpse of a jackrabbit that’s spoiling their well water. She takes in stride the family’s many moves—from New Mexico to Arizona, Texas, “Old Mexico,” and back to Arizona. When her mother dies, she’s left, at 14, to care for four younger siblings, including an infant. When her father becomes determined to marry her off, however, she runs away, first seeking shelter with an older sister but then striking out on her own, eventually finding a career with Western Union. Once she’s settled in California, though, she realizes it’s time to reunite with her family. Janssen weaves together aspects of her grandmother’s life with historical events; as such, Josie experiences boom-and-bust mining towns, Halley’s Comet, revolution in Mexico, homesteading in the desert, World War I, the influenza epidemic of 1918, and Prohibition in the ’20s. The modernizing West has horses and cowboys but also cars and flappers. Janssen weaves into the narrative stories about water—an important resource of the arid region, which explains the book’s title. However, her repeated metaphor that Josie’s life is like a river (“Life, like a river, can take some sharp twists and turns”) does not quite work, as our hero definitely and repeatedly takes initiative, rather than just flowing with the tide. Janssen writes in Josie’s voice, which allows readers to get to know her as a brave, complicated woman, and witnessing her growth as a confident person is an engaging experience. Other characters, however, are rather flat and their motivations vague. Also, some plot points seem unlikely, as when Josie, who lacks fashion sense, easily gets a job working the counter of a fancy hotel. Overall, though, Janssen creates a believable West that holds both opportunities and obstacles for her protagonist.

An intriguing, if uneven, novel of becoming a woman in the modern American West.