Watermark

This book was so sad and I cried and cried. I thought about it for days afterward. Images from it haunted me and scared me. I help my girlfriend a little bit tighter and wondered what it would feel like on some ordinary day to get a phone call like the one that Rayann did. But like Rayann, after time went by, I began to get past all the grief, and I realized that Terese is witty and smart, honest and rash, flawed and lovable. Very, very different from the first great love of Rayann's life. Like Rayann, it just took me some time to see it. Once I did, I fell for Terese in a big, big way. This is an unusual romance novel, but ultimately it gave me what I always look for in a love story: belief that love is real and we all deserve to have it in our lives. That feeling is why I read romance novels.

Forget thinking about this book as a romance -- it isn't. It's a story of a young woman being blindsided by an older woman's grief, and an older woman grieving for her dying partner.It's an outstanding story with only a chance at happiness by the end. The older woman is still fighting guilt every time she enjoys anything -- especially sex. The younger woman is only beginning to understand what she has never experienced. They both are too frightened to believe they have a future.This novel floored me. And it helped me. I've been that older woman and that younger woman.

If you want to enjoy this book, change your expectations. I read it when it first came out and was disappointed -- I wanted a nice, neat, happy romance. That is not what this book is about. There is a romance, but it ends ambiguously. The primary theme of this book is grief and moving on. It's mostly a novel, not a romance. I read the followup short story in Kallmaker's Frosting on the Cake, and that's what made me re-read this book. With the right expectation I was blown away by how powerful the prose is and how incredibly moving many of the scenes are. The characters are slices right out of life and they are as complicated and flawed and heroic as any Kallmkaer has ever done. I am so glad I re-read this book. Now all I can say is BRAVA!

This book was exactly what I needed when I read it. Coping with the loss of someone very close to me was wearing me down and a friend gave this book to me to read. I am a big romance reader, but did not get this one (by one of my favorite writers) because I thought it would be depressing. I could not believe at first how comforting it was to read and cry and have that gentle assurance that life goes on and there is hope, no matter how tenuous, for happiness in the end. Yes, this book was very different from other books by Karin Kallmaker, but I found the writing as powerful as anything she's ever done. This "romance" didn't stop at the heart; it got right down into a woman's soul.

A friend who helped out with some of the judging tasks for thepast year's Lambda Rising Awards told me this book missed being afinalist by the narrowest of margins. I was frankly skeptical -- Ithought it was some sort of Lifetime Achievement bias. After all, Ms. Kallmaker is prolific and her work is beloved.I shot my mouth off too much and my friend insisted I read the book. It knocked me for a loop. It had been a very long time since a book made me cry, not once, but over and over. From the first page of Rayann's inner dialogue I couldn't help but wonder what if it was me having to watch my beloved partner die by inches? What if it was me?The emotional power of this book is raw and unvarnished and yet not mawkish or melodramatic. To balance the moving yet depressing passages in Rayann's life we are introduced to Teresa, who encounters Rayann in the midst of her grieving process -- the angry stage. Teresa is young and untouched by the deeper conflicts of life. Life just hasn't started happening to her yet. She encounters this complete witch of a woman and for the first time realizes that life is unfair and can be unkind. Her life veers in a new direction because of the encounter. The two meet again and two very different experiences are woven into a single story. Teresa falls in love with the suffering Rayann, but doesn't know why Rayann is suffering. Rayann is still grieving and yet has to acknowledge a sexual attraction that seems like infidelity. Even at the end, we're not sure these two women will live happily ever after. They've both been through too much and too recently. Rayann is in the final stage of grief - acceptance. She hears her lover's voice less and less and she loves Teresa more and more. Even then she still isn't sure she will ever love anyone the way she loved her dead partner. Teresa falls in love again with the newly healing Rayann, a different person than she has known. She struggles to deal with feeling like second best.I simply did not expect this kind of writing and moving prose in a romance novel. Watermark transcends the genre and would have deserved a Lammy nomination... I can't recommend this book enough to women who want not just a good read with passion and humor, but also want to read with their minds and experience what Ms Kallmaker so beautifully portrays. I still wonder, having finished the book several months ago, what if it were me?