Black Water (Doughty)

Black Water 
Louise Doughty, 2016
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374114015


Summary
From the author of Apple Tree Yard comes a masterful thriller about espionage, love, and redemption. Selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 100 Notable Books of 2016.

John Harper is in hiding in a remote hut on a tropical island. As he lies awake at night, listening to the rain on the roof, he believes his life may be in danger. But he is less afraid of what is going to happen than of what he’s already done.

In a nearby town, he meets Rita, a woman with her own tragic history. They begin an affair, but can they offer each other redemption? Or do the ghosts of the past always catch up with us in the end?

Flashing back from late 1990s Indonesia to Cold War Europe, Harper’s childhood in civil rights-era California, and Indonesia during the massacres of 1965 and the subsequent military dictatorship, Black Water explores some of the darkest events of recent history through the story of one troubled man.

In this gripping follow-up to Apple Tree Yard, Louise Doughty writes with the intelligence, vivid characterization, and moral ambiguity that make her fiction resonate in the reader’s mind long after the final page. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—September 4, 1963
• Where—Melton Mowbray (East Midlands), England, UK
• Education—Leeds University; M.A., University of East Anglia
• Currently—lives in London, England


Louise Doughty is the author of seven novels, including the recently published Apple Tree Yard, which is currently being translated into eleven languages.

Her first novel, Crazy Paving (1995), was shortlisted for four awards including the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Her sixth novel, Whatever You Love (2010) was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction.

She has also won awards for radio drama and short stories, along with publishing one work of non-fiction, A Novel in a Year (2007), based on her hugely popular newspaper column. She is a critic and cultural commentator for UK and international newspapers and broadcasts regularly for the BBC. She was a judge for the Man Booker Prize in 2008 and is currently Chair of Judges for this year’s Fiction Uncovered promotion.

Doughty was born in the East Midlands and grew up in Rutland, England’s smallest county, a rural area that later provided the setting for her third novel, Honey-Dew. She attended Leeds University and the University of East Anglia, where she did the MA in Creative Writing course with Malcolm Bradbury and Angela Carter. She then moved to London and spent the rest of her twenties in a series of temporary jobs including teaching and secretarial work.

It was her experiences as a temp secretary that provided the material for her Crazy Paving, a black comedy about accidents, Chaos Theory and urban terrorism. That was followed by Dance With Me (1996), a novel about ghosts, mental illness and sexual betrayal, and Honey-Dew (1998), a satire of the traditional English mystery.

Doughty took a dramatic departure with her fourth novel, the internationally acclaimed Fires in the Dark (2003), based on the history of the Romany people and her own family ancestry. It was followed by Stone Cradle (2006) and Whatever You Love (2010).  In 2007, she published her first work of non-fiction, A Novel in a Year, based on her newspaper column of the same name.

She has written major features, columns and cover articles for a wide variety of newspapers and magazines including the Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Mail on Sunday, and her broadcasting career includes presenting radio series such as BBC R4's A Good Read and Writers’ Workshop. She is a regular guest on the radio arts programme Saturday Review. She lives in London. (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
Doughty’s excellent new novel is a character study, a glimpse at mid-century American civil rights, a thriller, a meditation on the effects of foreign policy on individuals, a modern love story and a portrait of Indonesian unrest in the 20th century.... If it sounds like a handful, it is. But Doughty has found an ideal vehicle for her wide-ranging interests.
Olen Steinhauer - New York Times Book Review


Doughty’s language is punchy, visually striking and emotionally potent.... This is a compelling and vivid psychological drama, with plenty of bite.
Leyla Sanai - Guardian (UK)


Skilfully drawn and compelling.... This serious novel marks a departure for Doughty, whose psychological thrillers, including Apple Tree Yard, have been so successful. This one strays more into le Carre territory—where she seems equally at home.
Carla McKay - Daily Mail (UK)


[T]he different elements never fully connect, the dense prose reading more like a newspaper investigation than fiction. Although tormented by his immoral choices, Harper elicits little sympathy from the reader, except during flashbacks to his childhood in L.A.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Doughty takes a page from John le Carre, crafting a riveting, psychological, morally ambiguous tale...richly detailed.... [T]he role of mercenaries in world affairs adds a new perspective to the spy novel genre.
Library Journal


Through Harper, Doughty creates a jarringly realistic backdrop of Indonesia’s violent past, sharply contrasting the menacing atmosphere with a growing romance and Harper’s memories of a vulnerable childhood in 1950s Los Angeles. A tense, contemplative literary thriller and worthy follow-up to Doughty’s critically acclaimed Apple Tree Yard (2013).
Booklist


Doughty has created a novel comparable to Graham Greene’s masterpiece The Quiet American in its taut exploration of morality on a geopolitical and personal scale.... The plot is complex and delves into dark, unjustly forgotten corners of history...as much a character study as it is an espionage thriller.... Black Water is a gripping thriller, incisive character study, a critique of US foreign policy and a love story haunted by the 1965 massacres in Indonesia.
Shelf Awareness


(Starred review.) [A] morally and emotionally fraught thriller...about an operative for an Amsterdam-based black-ops organization grappling with fallout from his personal and professional history in Indonesia.... Powerful, probing fiction in the tradition of Graham Greene and John le Carré.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, consider our LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for Black Water...and then take off on your own:

1. What do you think of Nicolaas Den Herder, AKA John Harper? Why is he living in a hut in a remote corner of the world? In what way is he more than he appears? Is he a moral individual?

2. Talk about Harper as young Nocolaas. How did his beginnings, his birth in a prison camp and his upbringing, shape the man we meet in the novel? In what way does his childhood explain why Harper is the man he is—and why he leads the life he leads?

3. Follow-up to Questions 1 and 2: At one point, Rita asks, "John, what happened to you?" Why does she ask that question? Second, what did happen to Harper? How does Louise Doughty unravel life events that have cost John so dearly? And what, exactly, are those costs?

4. What about Rita? What do you make of her?

5. Talk about the dire poverty, in Indonesia. Consider the conversation Harper had with a colleague in 1965 regarding a bag of rice that would feed a single person for two weeks—it cost 1,000 rupiah. A schoolteacher, on the other hand, earned 500 rupiah a month. Harper responded, "when rice is that expensive, human beings are cheap." What are the implications of that observation, for the people of Indonesia or even, on a global scale, for nations, rich and poor?

6. Rita assures Harper that things are better in Indonesia. Can Harper convince himself that life has changed for the better? What do you think?

7. Follow-up to Question 5: How does the nexus of global politics and multinational corporations play out in this novel?

8.  What, precisely, is Harper's role in Indonesia? People in his position are sent into countries to find answers to questions. What questions? And for whose benefit?

9. What kind of life does a spy lead? Consider friends and lovers, how people are viewed as assets and tools, the constant facade one hides behind, to say nothing of the presence of danger. What does that kind of life do to a soul? Or what kind of person chooses that profession?

10. Talk about Nicolaas's beloved Poppa, a man willing to put everything at risk to help those in need. How do we explain that kind of virtue in a world so fallen? Might the author be suggesting that, despite our lip service for doing good, Poppa is the one out of step in a fallen world, a world where people like Harper (and ourselves, perhaps?) are preoccupied with their own preservation?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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