SHOULD THE WATERS TAKE US

Soileau’s debut novel explores the effects of time and tides on generations of Acadian residents of Louisiana’s Gulf Coast.

Launched from a propulsive first chapter recounting the experiences of Noé Terrebonne and others—mostly descendants of Acadians exiled from New France to the bayous of the Gulf Coast—during a deadly storm in 1893 which annihilated life and property on Chenière Disparue, the sliver of land they inhabit, Soileau’s tale traces the history of the Terrebonnes and other Acadian families through generations and across oceans and continents. More recent descendants of the clan face equally chilling consequences when confronted with the environmental and social disasters presented by an explosion on an offshore oil rig and subsequent uncontrolled oil spill. An evocative sense of place is created by the author’s keen descriptions of the bayous, lakes, and marshes—inhabited by generations of Acadians such as the Terrebonnes and their in-laws as well as later-arriving Asian immigrants—which provide ghostly glimpses of the characters’ ancestors. Equally compelling, her characters are set in motion against a backdrop of environmental uncertainty, family disharmony, and economic stress. (Everyone’s nerves are frayed post-Katrina but nothing stops the weather.) The predatory forces of oil companies and their unscrupulous “landmen” present another issue altogether, and complicity and resentment are two ways that Soileau’s flawed, striving characters experience those forces. The menacing potential of water recurs as a motif throughout the novel and unites the experiences of the earliest settlers of New France with their Acadian descendants. Water can provide you with a living as a fisherman or oilman; offer secluded byways for romance or recreation; drown you or carry your already dead body away. In lyrical prose, Soileau illustrates each possibility unfolding as character after character struggles for survival in a world where “God’s thumb [is] pressing down.”

A gorgeous meditation on the forces that create and destroy communities, families, and lives.