Sister Water

About a month ago, I ran across an article on teaching that caught my attention. Called “The Fortune of Cookies,” (found in the November 1998 issue of College English), the author describes a practice she has of gently removing the fortunes from cookies and replacing them with lines from her students' poems. She then hands the cookies out in class. It’s a really cool idea for so many reasons, so I sent it onto my friend Vogel (technically, her name is Liz Vogel, but all I ever call her is “Vogel”).

Before she even read it, Vogel called to tell me, “Just so you know, Nancy Willard is one of my favorite writers.” I had no idea what she was talking about—I didn’t even notice the writer’s name when I sent the article. As we talked more, though, Vogel told me about Sister Water, Willard’s novel. “You’ll love it,” she said. “The characters have red hair [a trait we both share] and it’s full of magical realism and great ideas about stories and families.” She added, “And it’s all about Michigan!” This last bit didn’t impress me as much as it impressed my friend, a proud Michigan alum, but it made me laugh. I trust Vogel’s recommendations, so I tracked down a super-cheap copy online and gave Sister Water a whirl.

It really is an amazing book. Willard is a versatile writer, having published fiction, children’s literature, and poetry. This might be an oversimplification, but I’ve found you can always tell when a writer has done both—a poet’s fiction is just so lyrical, and Willard’s is no exception. Consider just these words from the opening paragraph: “On the twenty-first of June, 1930, in Drowning Bear, Wisconsin, Jessie Nelson saw what she did not wish to meet in this world and did not wish to forget in the next. She was fifteen years old. She wanted her red hair to grow so long she could sit on it, and she wanted to fall in love and travel and have her heart broken…” Tell me that doesn’t draw you in.

Sister Water isn’t a very long book—my edition is less than 250 pages—but it does so much in a small space. I really loved Willard’s characters, especially Jessie, Ellen, and Sam. In fact, my affection for Sam Theopolis, the sort of hippie-Buddhist care-giver for the elderly Jessie, actually surprised me the most. But how can you not love him? Consider what he says about his cat, whom he has hilariously named “The Everpresent Fullness” and language (two of my favorite topics): “‘…keeping a cat clears the brain…Some very important ideas only come to you when you’re speaking to cats in their own language. There are so many things you can’t say in English.’” Sam is also the speaker of the passage I’ve quoted below (the one accompanied by that awesome picture of Bing). He also makes another lovely point in a conversation with Ellen: “‘We aren’t made of atoms, Ellen. We’re made of stories.’” How true!* I mentioned to Vogel that I finished the book and wished there was a sequel because I loved the characters so much.

Finally, I’ll end with this observation from the novel’s closing pages, a sentiment that give me some comfort with all the changes and uncertainties in my life: “Your greatest obstacle is fear of the unknown. Remember that many men, and women too, have faced the unknown and come through. What they did, you too can do.”

*(Yikes, the entry is kind of corny. I must be in a sappy mood).