Near Water

Near Water is the final volume in Hugh Hood's spectacular New Age series, an epic saga that is already treasured and revered as a meticulous chronicle of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Beginning with an almost stream-of-consciousness meditation on identity, religion, angels, Dionysius, Aristotle, Freud, and you name it, Hugh Hood's prose scintillates in Near Water, animating a kinetic imagination that never misses a beat. Son of a Nobel laureate, father of a space voyager, friend of a movie star, estranged husband of a painter, and semi-famous because of it all, Matthew Goderich is driving up to the lake for a possible reunion with Edie, from whom he has been separated for 30 years. Then it happens, and we feel it happening too -- the pain, the delusions, the awful, sudden, interior crisis of a cerebrovascular accident. A stroke. And we stay with him, this self-proclaimed "hope man" who is never alone, while his mind roves over the vivid details of the life he has loved at this place near water.