Dreaming Water

by Gail Tsukiyama

This quiet, poignant story is about a young woman dying of a genetic disorder that makes her body age twice as fast as normal. She and her mother live alone in a house suffused with calm, going stoically through their daily routine, trying to stave off the inevitable. A sudden visitor disrupts their lives: the daughter's childhood friend, uninvited and bringing along her two kids. They haven't seen each other in ten years. After some initial awkwardness, the household of women settles down to enfold each other in loving friendship. That's what Dreaming Water felt like it was mostly about: friendship, and the mother-daughter relationship. While the characters have some friction and misunderstanding, everything gets resolved pretty quietly. Each chapter is told from a different viewpoint. Added to this are flashbacks of earlier experiences with different family members. It was hard for me to get a sense of who they all were. I found the story interesting because I'd never heard of werner syndrome before, but the character is not very memorable.

Rating: 3/5                   288 pages, 2002