Honest Confession: Undergirding my distaste for this novel is some jealousy of Martin's success. So take that into consideration for what follows.
There are lessons to learn ... not sure I can learn them.
The basic problem I'm struggling with is finding a new audience for my creative output, which has recently shifted to novels, that do not sit well with my former audience.
I won’t bore you with the history … but there’s a theme of the human condition that often raised its head in my work in the corporate world, which reading The Water Keeper has sharpened, and which relates to “finding a new audience.”
And honestly, I’m sitting here smiling and laughing at my fragilities. I'm not despondent, since I typically like crazy challenges that seemingly have no ready answer ... like hand shoveling 5 tons of limestone garden rock, which I dreaded for weeks at my age (79), but nonetheless did and felt good doing it—the endorphins raged ... happily.
Having written a sex-trafficking-rescue novel (Sabriya’s Hope), my sister (who has edited a lot of my stuff over the years, but not Sabriya) suggested Martin’s Water Keeper. Water Creeper was so distasteful to me for technical writing reasons that I put the book down four times, promising myself, my wife, and sister that I would not finish the book.
But this morning I did.
I'm not the only one who hated Water Keeper. I've read a few comments on book review sites that sound just like me ... I'll never read the second book ... ridiculous plot ... fatally wounded hero who lives ... impossible situations.
But Martin is hugely successful, if you believe the LIKES on Amazon and Goodreads. Although I have voiced out loud my dark-web suspicions of purchased LIKES and endorsements.
But back to some truth that might be helpful to any writer with bruises up the side of his or her head. Articulating the issue as aphorisms, I come up with:
What is true about the human condition is neither known nor precise.
or
Rubrics can become stumbling blocks that obstruct truth.
(which is ironic because rubrics are traditionally curbs that provide trustworthy direction toward truth.)
What do I mean by such maxims?
Martin's fictional rhetoric ignores with astonishing immunity the rubrics of reason and forces readers to forgive and accept outlandish premises, dramatic beats, and reversals because the undergirding theme of the novel is a love that teeters on absurdity … forcing the reader (dare I suspect women with bruised hearts) to forgive Martin's rhetorical foibles.
But Stan, aside from your evident misogyny, what possibly could Martin be doing wrong?
Well, let me tell you, but first remember, Martin has successfully built a huge audience, and we have to learn from that. But the list below, while only partial and without the detail from the text, each of the following took me out of the story as flamboyantly unrealistic since the premise is modern-day Florida around the Intercostal Waterway (ICW), and we're not talking about a fantasy novel like Harry Potter. Here's a list with a little detail:
SPOILERS FOLLOW:
- Outlandish descriptions of the capability of a Sig Sauer pistol with a 115-round capacity, during which Finger's (a good guy) is fatally wounded by return fire. Sig magazines vary from 10-30 rounds, and no mention is made of magazines, just the pistol.
- Martin consistently lies to the reader that Fingers is a real person, when at the end we discover Fingers is a fictitious character in novels that Murphy (David Bishop's alias) writes.
- The novels make Bishop extremely rich, which makes possible all the other outrageous things later in the novel.
- David Bishop is Charles Martin's alter ego, secretly rescuing beautiful female trafficked victims and air-freighting them off to a secret Colorado retreat so they can heal. Such ego stroking is blatant throughout the novel under the pretense of rescuing trafficking victims. (There's nothing untoward implied, and some girls are returned to their families, if they're not too psychologically messed up.)
- Repeated and outlandish examples of plot happenstance to introduce reversals. Major examples follow (a-r). As these piled up, each one made me groan and put down the book.
- (a) Murphy sets off for a week-long cruise down the ICW in a 24-foot Boston Whaler to Key West to sprinkle Finger's ashes at the "end of the road." It's hard to believe a reasonable character would take 2-3 weeks to do this for the ashes of a loved one when a car would get it done in a day or two. But then, Martin needs the boat and water for romantic and dramatic purposes.
- (b) Martin lies repeatedly to the reader that Fingers is a real person loved deeply by Murphy. Fingers is a narrative and emotional ploy— a liberal literary license of symbolism that, when discovered by the reader, is a major groaner and reveals the depth of Martin's lies earlier in the book.
- (c) Turns out Finger's ashes are just the ashes of some of Murphy's novels in which Finger is a character. This discovery makes (a) and (b) all the more absurd.
- (d) Before the trip down the ICW, young and sexy Angel visits Murphy's resident/chapel on a small island near Jacksonville to use the bathroom, but there are multiple heads onboard the 80-foot party boat she disembarked from.
- (e) Angel spends 12 pages in an inane dialogue with Murphy in his home/chapel. She tries to seduce him. She's drugged. She returns to the boat with the tip of the Captain's hat. The real purpose of the visit to use the bathroom is never revealed, and it was never about the bathroom, which the boat has plenty of, for the dozens of other boozing partygoers.
- (f) A day after leaving on his trip from Jacksonville to Key West, Murphy rescues a dog from the ICW (also swimming south). What are the chances that a dog is in the middle of the ICW sniffing the air to find his master?
- (g) Many more miles south in the ICW, also at night, Murphy rescues Summer, a beautiful and sexy woman, after she crashes and destroys a skiff she has stolen from a marina.
- (h) Turns out Summer is Angel's mother. What are the chances? There's no foreshadowing, just an inadvertent sharing of an iPhone photo of Angel to Summer.
- (i) Summer persuades Murphy to help her find Angel, who has been trafficked by the party boat gang.
- (j) Murphy races his Boston Whaler down the ICW toward Key West, but there's no indication that Angel is on a party boat going to Key West. Much, much later, Martin shares Murphy's logic for racing to Key West. But earlier, the race is one without reason or motivation, see (m).
- (k) A day later, and miles and miles down the ICW, they stop for lunch somewhere, and the dog takes off toward a ball field nearby. And there is the dog's "owner," a 78-year-old man, Clay, dying of cancer, who has just been let out of prison because he's going to die. Clay and the dog are reunited. What are the chances? Later we're told that Clay was tending bar on a party boat and saw Angel. When this was is a mystery. Supposedly Clay went from 60 years in prison to dying on the ball field, to Murphy's boat.
- (l) Turns out that Clay wants to visit his wife's grave, and guess where she's buried. You guessed it. Key West.
- (m) For reasons of a "ticking clock," Martin reminds us that they have to get to Angel quick before she's trafficked to Cuba or someplace, and so they have to keep rushing down the ICW. But they stop for nights in a hotel, for long lunches at cafes, and for bathroom breaks, and to teach Summer to swim, a task that is never needed later in the story. This "bathroom break" item is an important fact. The clear indication is that there's no way for a woman to go to the bathroom on a small 24-foot Boston Whaler. A man can go (presumably over the side of the boat), but not a woman. Are you ready?
- (n) Two or three days further south (remember, it's a week-long trip to Key West), while on shore for a stop, Clay draws Murphy aside and says there's a stowaway on the boat. Now, this is surprising to the reader, because so far the description of the Boston Whaler is that it has front and rear seating, and in the center under a T-roof is the steering and control console, but it's otherwise open to the weather and waves over the side, etc. There's no mention of a cabin. Suddenly, Murphy goes on the boat (again, at night) and opens up the "head locker." And there inside is a teenage girl, meet Ellie, who's been sitting on the head (the toilet) for two days in the dark. I looked on the Boston Whaler site; the head locker on a 24-footer is big enough for a grown man to poop. Wait, I thought they had to stop to let the ladies (and gents) go to the bathroom at marinas, motels, and restaurants. I guess it didn't fit the plot for Martin to tell us this. Before he lied by commission, now it's lying by omission ... and he claims to be a priest!
- (o) But there's more. Murphy reveals that he was married for almost an hour, years earlier. Turns out that he and his childhood friend, Marie, were married, but at the reception his best man distributed photographs to everyone at the reception, revealing the bride and the best man naked in bed the night before the wedding. The best man mocks Murphy, "I'll always be her first," and the bride goes off and commits suicide.
- (p) Turns out Ellie is Murphy's daughter by Marie, who didn't commit suicide, but returned to Murphy, where they made up for a couple of hours and Marie conceived and hid out in NY until the baby was born and put the child up for adoption...all this time Murphy thinks that Marie is dead of suicide. Then, out of the blue, Ellie shows up in Murphy's boat and HIDES for two days, only to confront him that he may be the father, which he denies, telling Ellie that she was born a year after his "wife" died. It's great to keep secrets from readers, but looking back, we should find clues, not lies.
- (q) During all the rescue operations over the years, Murphy has a close Academy friend who is running intelligence ops for Murphy's rescue efforts from their hideout in the Colorado mountains. This friend is Bones. Turns out Bones knew all along (18 years) about Marie and Ellie and didn't tell Murphy. Don't believe it.
- (r) Guess where Marie ended up? You only get one guess. Key West, within walking distance of where Murphy spread "Fingers" ashes. Marie is dying of a virus and has been a nun for 18 years. Of course, they reunite, kiss, and she dies in his arms as he "baptizes hr the Gulf as she takes her last breath. But all that only after Marie tells Ellie all about why she abandoned David and her daughter.
Well, I'm running out of letters. But you get the idea.
However, a couple more observations.
- Turns out Murphy is an extraordinary one-man SWAT, ARMY- RANGER, SEAL TEAM 6, and DEMOLITION EXPERT that always seems to have armament, explosives, guns, bulletproof vests, and underwater lung capacity and the right tools at his fingertips, even at night, underwater, in the middle of the Gulf. And he can get shot, sliced, bled out, and still get up and fight, fight, fight. Hollywood will never make this movie simply because none of Hollywood's superheroes are this super. It's too fantastical. Harry Potter is lame by comparison.
- Finally, the story about Murphy, told at the ending of the book, by David Bishop, complete with shifting POVs in the middle of paragraphs (very confusing) makes the reader wonder: "If David Bishop (aka Murphy Shepherd) is so smart (2nd in his class at the Academy ... which Academy?) why did he he marry such a psychotic, disloyal woman (known from childhood), and ask a total psychotic, jerk to be his best man. In other words, David Bishop is a terrible judge of character, and for all his rescue efforts, he can't find the living. Conclusion: We should idolize fictional characters that are flawed beyond belief.
There's more, but I must stop.
The bottom line is The Water Keeper is extremely popular.
Why?
What can we learn from Martin's rhetoric?
I have a few opinions, but I'm curious as to yours. Please comment.
In closing, back to my aphorisms.
What is true about the human condition is neither known nor precise.
or
Rubrics can become stumbling blocks that obstruct truth.
My problem is that I value reason, logic, and stories that embrace rationality (rubrics, precision). My doctoral education was partly in the philosophy of logic, and I spent the first decades of my professional life writing detailed operational, malfunction diagnosis, and repair procedures for NASA astronauts and automotive technicians. Precision. Detail. Reason. Facts.
If I ever want to be a popular writer like Charles Martin, I have a problem that I may not be able to overcome.
In other words, all the "problems" with TWK, listed above, obviously don't mean a centipede's patter to a book's success (in this culture)
ON THE OTHER HAND: Charles Martin's de facto expertise is his ability to describe love in all its absurdity. And that is what The Water Keeper is really about. It's not about rescuing sex-trafficked women. It's about relationships and the ability for a man to LOVE people in all their ABSURDITY. I haven't counted the pages, but I think there are more pages in TWK about the inequities, the inexactitude, and the absurdities of love than there are pages of action and mayhem.
For now, for me, shoveling gravel is so much more appealing. Maybe that's my calling.
