The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

Sunday, Dec. 17, 2023--San Antonio

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese is a New York Times Top 10 book of 2023 which was also recommended by NPR, Oprah, and other sources.  It's a saga covering three generations of a Christian family in Kerala, the southwestern state of India that is known for waterways and palm trees and for regularly electing communist governments in modern times.  The book is set in the scope of the early to the late 1900s.  There are many characters, but they all tie together in some way and often leave the story and return later.  Its a story of a mysterious disease that causes drownings over many generations of a family, of corruption, of arranged marriages, of the caste system, of the plight of lepers, and of other factors of life in Kerala.  As a person who has visited Kerala 3 times and spent months there as a volunteer in a school, I could relate to so much of what was happening in the book.  But it is a fascinating story that keeps re-hooking the reader to continue even though it is almost 800 pages long and at times seems as if it has wandered too far off track creating concern that all will not be tied together at the end.  The reader who continues will be rewarded.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.