Review: We Live in Water

We Live in Water by Jess Walter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It’s probably not fair for me to continue to review Jess Walter’s work. He is, without a doubt, my favorite author and as such could write assembly instructions for IKEA that I’d give all the stars. This writer can bring a reader to tears, elicit snorts of derision and induce gales of uncontrollable laughter—all at the same time.

These short stories are related by a theme that is beautifully explained by a quote from the short that lent its title to the book:

And that’s when Oren understood. Do we live in water? He watched the fish come to the end of its blue world, invisible and impassible, turn, go around and turn again as he sensed another wall and another and on and on. It didn’t even look like water in there, so clear and blue. And the goddamn fish just swam in its circles, as if he believed that, one of these times, the glass wouldn’t be there and he would just sail off, into the open.

Every character here comes up against wall after wall, some of their own making and others erected through no fault of the character himself.

Throughout, Walter’s writing style is pure gold. The dialogue is gritty and real, the characters always in some way relatable, and the tone brilliantly developed then supported. From introspective asides to heart-wrenching conversations, the author drags us into the pit of despair then kicks us out into the blinding light of reality with enough humor to lessen the glare.

“Virgo” is my favorite story of this collection and was also released as a teaser story at the end of The Financial Lives of the Poets. A jilted man takes his revenge on an ex lover in a most deliciously wicked way. Anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of a Dear John exit will find this piece to be smugly satisfying.

“We Live in Water” was also an incredible read. Spanning thirty years and alternating between past and present, this one brought me to tears. Another standout was “Don’t Eat Cats”, a seemingly metaphoric condemnation of millennials and the franchising of corporate America, and a public-service treatise on illicit drugs, told with a wit that bites to the bone.

It was, however, “The Wolf and the Wild” that offered my favorite exchange of the set:

“On the bright side, I have figured out how to fix the American educational system. End it at sixth grade.”

“Brilliant. Then what?”

“Lock them up in empty factories, give them all the Red Bull, condoms, and nachos they want, pipe in club music, and check back when they’re twenty-five. Anyone still alive, we send to grad school.” Wade pushed his glass forward. “How’s that for a campaign platform?”

Seriously. Jess Walter is some time of magic.

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