Title: Deeper Water
Author: Jessie Cole
Published: Harper Collins Au August 2014
Status: Read from August 03 to 04, 2014 — I own a copy {Courtesy the author}
My Thoughts:
Jessie Cole’s second novel, Deeper Water, is a graceful, captivating novel introducing Mema, a young woman who lives a simple life with her mother in a remote valley in Northern New South Wales.
Mema is twenty two but, having spent most of her life isolated from wider society, has an innocence more befitting a young teenager, happiest running barefoot in the rain with her only friend, Anja, or watching the sky lighten at dawn. She is not uneducated but is unworldly, with little curiosity about what lies beyond the boundary of the family property. She is naive but not unknowing, aware of her mother’s reputation for promiscuity, but uninterested in men or relationships. But everything begins to change for Mema when rescues a stranger, Hamish, from the flooded creek and slowly her ‘unknowns become knowns’.
They say every hero has to leave home, but what those first steps are like I’m yet to know”
Deeper Water beautifully explores Mema’s belated coming-of-age, her growing awareness of herself, of her desires, and of what the outside world may have to offer her. Mema is a richly drawn character struggling with the emotional changes Hamish’s presence awakens, and the way they affect her relationships, with her family, Anja and a neighbour, Billy, in particular.
Deeper Water is also about connection, or the lack there of. Mema is intimately connected to the landscape in which she lives, and the family she loves, but divorced from the wider world. Hamish, despite being horrified by Mema’s lack of internet and mobile access, can claim no real anchor, and despite his environmental credentials, has little connection to the land.
The landscape in which Deeper Water is set has character of its own and is brought to life by Cole’s evocative descriptions.
“At dusk the creek takes on a certain colour. velvety brown. Without the dapples sunshine, its depths are muted and mysterious and all the creatures seem to come to the surface. The catfish linger on their nests and the eels float by like black ribbons. The turtles perch on the flats of exposed rocks and the kingfishers fly past like the brightest of tailsmans.”
With its simple yet elegant prose, and quiet yet deeply felt emotion, Deeper Water is a mesmerising story about a young woman’s awakening to the possibilities of love and life.
Learn more about Jessie Cole and Deeper Water in this guest post, published earlier today
Deeper Water is available to purchase from
Harper Collins I
I Booktopia I Bookworld I via Booko
and all good bookstores.
Deeper Water Trailer from HarperCollins Australia on Vimeo.
Book’d Out 
I like the explanation of how she is connected to the land, but he isn’t even though he has an environmental background. That’s an interesting comment to me. You either love nature and are out in it or you have a head knowledge. This sounds like an interesting book.
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Really loved this book – I particularly liked the way the sexual aspect of it was handled .. tied in with the natural environment.
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