Escaping into a book is usually a metaphorical act. We can return to reality simply by closing the book, safely returning from our fictional journeys in even the most dire of scenarios. When Jaime and Rachel disappear into a book, however, not only can they not return to reality, there’s a real chance that they might not survive the experience. Sam Mills’s The Watermark is a wild ride through historical fiction, science fiction, and literary fiction; it’s a battle of wills between characters and author for control of the narrative.
Augustus Fate is an author (and curmudgeon) whose characters and stories have garnered awards and devoted readers. Jaime is all a-quiver when he wins a contest to interview Fate. Publishing the interview could lead to a career as a writer, something Jaime both covets and dispairs of as he tries to finish his thesis. Augustus, curiously, seems far more interested in Jaime when the young man arrives at his remote home. Augustus is also very insistent that Jaime sample some of the strangely ink-black tea that he’s prepared. By the time Jaime reaches the bottom of the cup, it’s clear that something is seriously wrong with the whole setup and with Fate. Just as Jaime loses consciousness, he sees a young woman asleep on a bed, an IV of black liquid in her arm.
Authors get their ideas from all over: real life, dreams, other things they’ve read, pure imagination. Augustus’s source of inspiration for his characters, it turns out, is to kidnap real people. Jaime wakes to find himself in the Victorian era. He’s a teenager. He’s also crushing on the governess of a girl who lives in the neighborhood. This governess, Rachel, unintentionally calls to Jaime (known now as Thomas Turridge). This story sets the pattern for the rest of the book. Either Jaime or Rachel will come to consciousness believing themselves to be a character in another story, then find their “real” counterpart, and then try to find a way out of the new story and back to reality. Small recurring names or objects clue Rachel or Jaime into the fact that what they’re experiencing is just fiction. The fascinating but deliberately obscure process of book surfing with the tea Fate uses facilitates their journey to the next story.
Some of the stories Jaime and Rachel landed in were more interesting to me than others. I really enjoyed the historical fiction stories they found themselves in. These stories have a bit more plot to them where the literary fiction/science fiction stories tend to bog down in dialogue in which the characters work through their feelings. The parts of the book where Fate (or whoever the author is) starts to manipulate the plot and setting around Rachel and Jaime into acting were absolutely gripping, which made the long passages of dialogue harder for me to endure until the story got interesting again.
By the time I finished The Watermark, I had realized that this book was more philosophical than I was expecting. I can’t fault the book for not being what I wanted. My complaints about the pacing are meant to be a heads-up to other readers, so that they won’t race through the book to find out if Jaime and Rachel escape. The ideas that come up in The Watermark—samskaras, the nature of reality and whether or not we can know if what we experience is real, Fate/fate and self-determination, love, parents, whether or not authors should let characters “do what they want”—shouldn’t be rushed. I think readers who like to contemplate the relationship between author, character, story, and reader will find a lot of food for thought here.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.