The Long Shining Water, Danielle Sosin

The Long Shining Water,  Danielle Sosin

Lake Superior is the glue that brings together three women and their stories of despair, searching, and life.  The first story is set in1622, the year that Etienne Brule becomes the first white man to enter Lake Superior.   The woman, an Ojibwe, has dreams that haunt her life and cause her to have fears that she cannot comprehend.  Is it the white skinned stranger that is in her vision that is the source of both change and evil?  Is she seeing the change that will alter the lives of her children and tribe?  She travels the lake through the seasons to find an interpretation in Bawatang and finds there an image even stronger than her dreams.

In 1902 a husband and wife have rediscovered their love for one another on the shore of the Lake.  He a fisherman, she an artist: they mesh their lives together until the Lake becomes the third leg of the triangle and Berit must sort out the impact of the cold waters that embrace her husband – Gunnar.

Finally the three alternating stories move to 2000.  Her is Nora, a bar owner in Superior who has lost a man to the lake, has had her daughter move away and put distance between them, as well as her granddaughter.  Nora is without more than a job, she has no anchor place.  She drifts like the waves and finds herself traveling the Full Circle Route around the Lake almost by accident, but again the Lake is a character and the journey gives her the analogy of a circle that never ends – like the events that tie together lives. 

It is well written with wonderful images and a sense of the poetic. 

Some good images are in the quotes below:

"Gunnar angles them toward the horizon, and John feels the growing distance from land like a low vibration throughout his body. It's as clear looking down at the boulders underwater as it is looking up through the air, causing him to feel slightly disoriented about the relative size of things, his place in the world, and which element he is part of."

"There's a freighter out there like a long dark shoebox. Strange how graceful they look from far away, when up close they are all steel and grind."

"The hollow knocking is coming from the water. Nora sets the pen down and rubs her eyes. She puts her mug on the notebook to keep it from blowing and walks to the edge of the little yard. Out beyond the slanting rock ledge there are chunks of floating ice as big as bathroom mirrors clacking around in a sea of ice chips."

"The sound is soothing and it's pretty the way the ice is glinting. It looks like a giant grey daiquiri. Further out, a gull floats in the swells, and she wonders that it doesn't freeze to death. Beyond it there's only open water and a long-lined horizon."

"Nora stands beside the locks at Sault Ste Marie, where the International Bridge spans the water, its ironwork yellow against high stretching clouds.  She has traveled clear to the end of the lake.  And it does feel like an end of sorts, with the mammoth locks forming a gateway, the lake on one side and the river on the other, connecting Superior to Lakes Huron and Michigan.  But lakes don't really have ends, she thinks, popping an antacid into her mouth. They just keep going around in a circle."

Lake Superior is the glue that brings together three women and their stories of despair, searching, and life.  The first story is set in1622, the year that Etienne Brule becomes the first white man to enter Lake Superior.   The woman, an Ojibwe, has dreams that haunt her life and cause her to have fears that she cannot comprehend.  Is it the white skinned stranger that is in her vision that is the source of both change and evil?  Is she seeing the change that will alter the lives of her children and tribe?  She travels the lake through the seasons to find an interpretation in Bawatang and finds there an image even stronger than her dreams.

In 1902 a husband and wife have rediscovered their love for one another on the shore of the Lake.  He a fisherman, she an artist: they mesh their lives together until the Lake becomes the third leg of the triangle and Berit must sort out the impact of the cold waters that embrace her husband – Gunnar.

Finally the three alternating stories move to 2000.  Her is Nora, a bar owner in Superior who has lost a man to the lake, has had her daughter move away and put distance between them, as well as her granddaughter.  Nora is without more than a job, she has no anchor place.  She drifts like the waves and finds herself traveling the Full Circle Route around the Lake almost by accident, but again the Lake is a character and the journey gives her the analogy of a circle that never ends – like the events that tie together lives. 

It is well written with wonderful images and a sense of the poetic. 

Some good images are in the quotes below:

"Gunnar angles them toward the horizon, and John feels the growing distance from land like a low vibration throughout his body. It's as clear looking down at the boulders underwater as it is looking up through the air, causing him to feel slightly disoriented about the relative size of things, his place in the world, and which element he is part of."

"There's a freighter out there like a long dark shoebox. Strange how graceful they look from far away, when up close they are all steel and grind."

"The hollow knocking is coming from the water. Nora sets the pen down and rubs her eyes. She puts her mug on the notebook to keep it from blowing and walks to the edge of the little yard. Out beyond the slanting rock ledge there are chunks of floating ice as big as bathroom mirrors clacking around in a sea of ice chips."

"The sound is soothing and it's pretty the way the ice is glinting. It looks like a giant grey daiquiri. Further out, a gull floats in the swells, and she wonders that it doesn't freeze to death. Beyond it there's only open water and a long-lined horizon."

"Nora stands beside the locks at Sault Ste Marie, where the International Bridge spans the water, its ironwork yellow against high stretching clouds.  She has traveled clear to the end of the lake.  And it does feel like an end of sorts, with the mammoth locks forming a gateway, the lake on one side and the river on the other, connecting Superior to Lakes Huron and Michigan.  But lakes don't really have ends, she thinks, popping an antacid into her mouth. They just keep going around in a circle."