review of "Silver Waters", By Amy Bloom

Silver Waters

By

Amy Bloom

Plot: The plot of Silver Waters is the breaking down of Violets sister Rose, ending in Rose’s suicide.  The story begins with a memory of Violets of her older sister Rose when she was still “herself”.  The story is broken down in Rose’s ups and down.  Doctors that worked, and doctors that didn’t.  The story is told from Violets point of view but the story is more about Rose, or I guess Violets feelings about Rose.  The interesting thing is the story begins and ends with the same memory of her sister singing.

Emotion:

1) When her mother says she raised warrior queens.  It’s funny because that’s something my mother always says about my sister and I.  We call ourselves amazons.  The strength that mother would have to have to go out into those woods to see her dead daughter.  And to know what Violet had done for Rose would break anyone’s heart.

2) When violet sits with her sister all night in the cold and wet waiting for her to die.  Violet lover her sister so much she basically stopped her life for her several times.  She was such a strong woman to deal with the things she dealt with at such an early age.  It sounded a lot to me like when you hear of nurses staying with patients until they die.  Or comrades on the battlefield, I guess there battlefield was life.

3) In the end we don’t hear about Violet crying.  But we feel her sadness when she re tells the story about her sister singing.  I think in stead of giving this long winded crying sean Amy Bloom was able to capture the emotion of Violet in her memorys.  It was heart breaking.

 I cried when I read this story.  It hit very close to home.  “Closing time.”  Those words ring in my ears.  My cousin killed herself this last summer and I haven’t gotten over it.  I don’t think I’ve even processed it all the way.  When you kill yourself you are at your most selfish.  Rose was lost, and in a hard you never want to think about way, maybe death was a good thing.  But when I think of Rose giving up I think of my cousin.

an excerpt from a could be story

 I have never been a patient person.  I knew the wait was worth it, but right then I was just annoyed.  My cargo was getting restless and I didn’t feel like talking to him.  Ed was a nice enough kid, he stayed put and stayed quite.  He also knew enough from my mood to leave me alone.  They say when one of your senses has been cut off the others peek.  If any of his senses had peeked since he’d gone blind it was his sensitivity.  I keep my headphone on, just loud enough to distract me but quiet enough that I could hear the announcements.  I watched Ed out of the corner of my eyes him head was bobbing to my music, his longish golden brown hair swished around his pale face.  He was tall, or at lest I though he was tall for a nine year old.  We both wore sunglasses, me because the bright overhead lights were blinding against the darkness and rain outside, he wore them so no one could see his eyes were different.  Next to each other people might think we were some kind of celebritys trying to hide our identities.

 A woman sat down across from me and pulled out a burger from a Burger King bag.  The smell was inviting and a little sickening.  It mixed in with the smell of perfume and stale coffee.  The woman opened her mouth wide and took a bite.  She looked about twenty-five; she wore pink lipstick and a matching pink dress.  Her blond hair cascaded down her back she looked too perfect she made me sick.  I looked up and saw that our plane wasn’t leaving for another hour, delayed again.

 My music changed and took on a faster tone.  I had no idea who was singing, I reached down to look at my ipod and Ed grabbed my hand.  I looked at him; his face was turned to me.  It was strange knowing he couldn’t see me.  My phone range before he could say anything, saved by the ring tone.  I took my head phones off and put them on Ed; I took my cell phone out and answered it.  The inviting voice on the other side was just what I needed.