Though not as linear as novel chapters, each story in broken water builds on the next until a hodge podge picture of a larger whole is revealed. A certain detail from one story will pop up in a unique way in different story; another will challenge an assumption of one character later on. Ranging so widely in time and space and character point of view, the effect is having a partially completed puzzle the reader is given a few key parts with which to piece together the whole. (read more...) --Small Spiral Notebook |
...Ellie's brittle but harsh words are frequently softened by the moving images and metaphors threading through the separate but united scenes. Such evocative juxtaposition is literally (no exaggeration) breathtaking, and the reader must stop to contemplate such artistic and literate writing. This is a collection to be enjoyed by those readers who truly appreciate writing by a master of the craft. (read more...) --Crystal Reviews |
broken water has been chosen by a Colorado high school as a creative writing tool for good reason. Ms. Morell's writing is beautiful in its simplicity, her prose style elegant... I overuse the word "stunning" perhaps, but sometimes stunning is the only word that will suffice. The truths revealed by Ms. Morell are stunning.... (read more...) --New Works Review |
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
">
Reviews |
broken water has been chosen by a Colorado high school as a creative writing tool for good reason. Ms. Morell's writing is beautiful in its simplicity, her prose style elegant... I overuse the word "stunning" perhaps, but sometimes stunning is the only word that will suffice. The truths revealed by Ms. Morell are stunning.... (read more...) --New Works Review |
The descriptions of the happenings in this book are amazing as I felt that was right there seeing all of the thoughts and emotions that these characters were portraying. This book brings about many feelings...often I found myself shedding a tear along with the character, or feeling the joy or excitement she felt. Although this book is only 100 pages long, Morell gives descriptions that create pictures... --The Writer's Den |
Paula Morell's book, broken water, is among that rare breed: the book that haunts long after it has been read. broken water explores the reasons why we fail to love those who by all rights should be the easiest to care for, our families. Morell's work, told in the form of a threaded short-story cycle, shows us the betrayals, the unmet expectations, the heart-aches that family members inflict on each other. The appeal of Morell's tale lies in her willingness to show us how messy love and life really are. This is not life viewed through the prism of a fairy tale, but life lived, wounds inflicted, warts and all. broken water is narrated from the perspectives of a mother, Elizabeth, and her daughter, Ellie. From Elizabeth's narrative, we see the regret over her own failures as they ripple through the years both back in time and forward. Memories of Elizabeth's relationship with her own mother reveal the roots of emotional pain that continue into her daughter Ellie's generation. Through Ellie's eyes we see how a young woman moves her way into adulthood. Lacking the tools for growth that a more nurturing home might have provided, Ellie pushes on, seeking her own authenticity. Embarrassed when her mother makes a surprise appearance in the bar where she works, Ellie finds herself looking at Elizabeth in a different light as she rides off with one of her regular customers a character from the Arkansas hills delightfully known as "Mountain Man" on the back of his motorcycle. It is an achingly beautiful moment as Ellie realizes that her mother is a woman with the same needs and feelings as Ellie herself. These are not depressing stories, but stories of hope as Ellie and Elizabeth both find the strength to grow and stretch just a little bit more toward understanding and love. It is almost impossible to believe that broken water isn't autobiographical, so truly does the author's voice resonate. If Paula Morell were a visual artist, she would most certainly be a photorealist. Deftly crafted with grit and authenticity, broken water is well worth reading and reading again. -Micah McConnell Department of Rhetoric and Writing University of Arkansas at Little Rock |
Writing realistic fiction that feels psychologically true, that doesn't betray its characters by imposing alien plot structures on their lives, is a bit of a tightrope walk -- a tightrope walk successfully navigated in some of the best short stories of the 20th century, from James Joyce's Dubliners to the minimalism of Raymond Carver. But these days the stuff isn't very popular. Publishers, like movie studios, prefer schematic thrillers and romantic clenches to epiphanies and ellipses. Therefore, you may have to dig a little to find a worthy example of psychological fiction called broken water by Little Rock author Paula Martin Morell. broken water is a self-published collection of stories, half of which were previously published by New Works Review, Short Story Journal, and (ta-dah!) the Little Rock Free Press. (I should add a disclaimer here: Paula's daughter, Annaliese, is in the same play group with my daughter Audrey.) Morell describes the book as a "short-story cycle". The end result is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. For all practical purposes, broken water is a short novel. The book begins in mid-nineties Little Rock, where we first meet a classically disaffected Gen-Xer named Ellie who works as bartender at the White Water Tavern. In the first story, "Bait", Ellie drags her brother Toby away from his job for an afternoon outing at Murry Park. Toby is self-supposed UFO abductee who makes oodles of money as a graphic designer but has almost no life outside of work. He's also the only member of Ellie's family to which she can connect. By the banks of the Arkansas river, while Toby talks of giant mutant catfish swimming unseen in the muddy deep, Morell lures us into the equally murky depths of Ellie's dysfunctional family. In "Going Deaf" we go with Ellie to a very awkward Christmas Eve dinner with her emotionally distant father, Tom, and his fourth wife Candace. There we learn that Tom wasn't always the "Iceman", as his children now call him. At one time, back when his family seemed functional, he was as warm as the Beethoven symphonies he loves. In "Overlapping" Ellie shares an equally uncomfortable dinner with her mother, Elizabeth, who is never quite present, always losing herself in memories, some of which never happened. But unlike the dinner with Tom, mother and daughter are able to make a tentative connection. Between these two dinner scenes Morell takes us to the past in a story called "Deep Sleep" that is written from Elizabeth's point of view. In it we learn that this family was already heading for a rupture when Ellie was only one year old, and we learn a secret that Elizabeth takes to her grave. Two other stories, "Riches to Keep" and "Circling", are also written from Elizabeth's point of view, and both take place in earlier time frames than the Ellie stories that dominate the book. By structuring broken water this way, Morell gives her readers the same feeling of falling back in time that her characters keep experiencing in the book's second half, when Elizabeth, Ellie and eventually even Toby fall almost vertiginously back into memories they had forgotten, memories that allow them to see the present in a different light. The purpose of these memory free-falls is metaphorically described by the book's keystone, "The Channel", a vividly descriptive story that at first glance has little to do with the rest of broken water. In it, Ellie finds herself making a three AM run to an emergency pet clinic with Toby's pregnant dog, Scully. Ellie ends up having to assist in the birthing of Scully's puppies by C-section. The veterinarian explains that after he clamps and snips the umbilical chord "...I need you to hold each pup over your head with both hands, and then quickly pull it down to waist level. That will mimic the motion of the birth canal, which will force the amniotic fluid from their lungs and cause them to breathe. You'll know it's worked when they start yelping." The plunge that brings the puppies into this world mimics the plunge into memories that the characters keep experiencing in broken water. Indeed, the story in which Ellie finally gains the memory and insight that allows her to see her mother as a human being is entitled "New Born." If broken water was written in the style modern publishers prefer, it would be a thick flaccid Lifetime Network Original Movie of a book, filled with tear-jerking scenes of mothers and daughters and past betrayals and cancer bound together with saccharine piano chords plink-plonking into a heartburn-inducing resolution. But Morell manages to avoid all that. Her writing is clear, vivid and unsentimental. Her characters live in well-etched settings that feel as real as the moment-to-moment interplay of their emotions. If occasionally Morell strains her prose a bit to bring an ending to her stories, ultimately she maintains her balance on the tightrope of psychological realism, allowing her characters to keep much off their lives off the page. In showing us only what we need to see and keeping the rest off stage, Morell allows her characters to live on past the book's end. She allows us to glimpse the deep currents of their pasts, shows us how these currents break the surface of the present, and then she gracefully exits. And in our heads, Ellie's family continues. --Little Rock Free Press |
...I laughed and I cried when reading these touching stories. I highly recommend this book to all mothers and daughters. It may make a difference in how relationships are perceived. --The Best Reviews |
...Ellie's brittle but harsh words are frequently softened by the moving images and metaphors threading through the separate but united scenes. Such evocative juxtaposition is literally (no exaggeration) breathtaking, and the reader must stop to contemplate such artistic and literate writing. This is a collection to be enjoyed by those readers who truly appreciate writing by a master of the craft. (read more...) --Crystal Reviews |
Though not as linear as novel chapters, each story in broken water builds on the next until a hodge podge picture of a larger whole is revealed. A certain detail from one story will pop up in a unique way in different story; another will challenge an assumption of one character later on. Ranging so widely in time and space and character point of view, the effect is having a partially completed puzzle the reader is given a few key parts with which to piece together the whole. (read more...) --Small Spiral Notebook |
A very quick read, broken water will make you look at your mother differently as you understand what drives Elizabeth. You may think about your own life, hoping that you are not as lost as Ellie, just working to pass the time, and unable to open herself up. --Book Review Cafe |
broken water is alternately painful and poignant, triumphant and troubling, pure and profound. The characters are memorable and the thoughts eloquently expressed. --Midwest Book Review |
