Madalena invites her four grown up children to Switzerland to celebrate the anniversary of her hotel, unaware of the secrets and tensions amongst them which will play out during their visit.
Set in Switzerland, Water’s Edge is a contemporary drama about relationships. It isa weave of four family members’ stories – the secrets they are compelled to keep and those they are driven to divulge; the compromises they make; and what they can and can’t resolve.
Excerpt
Portia surveyed the playroom of her childhood
home. Nothing had changed: the oak bookcases, the dressing up box which Dad had assembled one stormy afternoon. Even the whiteboard, where they wrote their “thought for the day”, remained on the wall. She now wondered how her family would react if she wrote, “Mistake coming to Switzerland. Should have stayed in London.”
She wandered into the private sitting room. Here there were changes. The green and wine striped sofa and matching armchairs were new. So was the rug. The familiar smell of an apricot potpourri lingered, however. On the sideboard lay a tea tray with crockery and some Japanese paper napkins. Beside it, two stands displayed cakes on silver doilies.
Her eye rested on the corner walnut bureau, focused on the visitor’s book, and she made herself open it, read the names of attendees at Dad’s funeral. The leather felt comforting, but its smell evoked an involuntary swallow.
It didn’t seem like five years since they’d surrounded his chrysanthemum coffin at the graveyard. Since she’d tolerated the incessant handshaking, mourners addressing her mother as “Frau Fontana” despite having known her for years.
Bereavement was supposed to bond families. Not theirs. Was this why Mum had summoned them back?
She flicked through the pages of tributes to her father. On the last page were the immediate family’s signatures - everyone’s except Lucy’s.
At the time, it had felt inappropriate, if understandable, to be relieved about the funeral being during term time. To so easily justify Lucy’s remaining at school, where the housemistress would keep an eye on her in case she became distressed by Papa’s death. With Lucy in Brunnen, Portia would constantly have been on tenterhooks.
Portia now closed the book and wandered over to the window. Half way down the lake, boats with candy striped sails whizzed across the water, turned and tacked back in the easterly breeze. Such freedom….
In the garden, Herr Huber was flinging weeds into a bucket which pinged as stone hit metal. Beside him lay a basket of coral roses, probably destined for a table centre this evening.
She poured a cup of tea, wishing she could have the room to herself for longer. As the door opened, she stood to attention.
‘Portia,’ Vienne said, hesitating before hugging her and flopping into an armchair. ‘Oh, how I loathe early starts.’
Vienne’s habitual freesia perfume lingered on Portia’s neck. I’m your sister, it said. Remember?
‘How was your flight?’
Vienne laughed. ‘You’d think with all my travelling I’d be relaxed about flying now. How long has it been since we saw each other?’
Portia tugged at a loose thread on her trouser seam. ‘That charity concert.’
The evening when her past finally caught up with her.
Professional Reviews
One of the best books I've read this year
One of the best books I’ve read this year
Summer is upon us and many reviews that come out now are prefaced by the phrase “Great Summer Reading.” Having just completed Water’s Edge by Jane Riddell, I find myself concluding that this novel not only makes for excellent summer reading, but great reading at any time of year. I’d say it’s one of my all time favourite books in the past twelve months.
Madalena holds a family reunion in the hotel that she runs in Brunnen, Switzerland. The hotel presides over a beautiful lake, hence, the title of the novel—Water’s Edge. Throughout the book, the reader is placed constantly on the edge of discovering significant secrets about Madalena’s family. And we are not disappointed. Riddell creates revelation upon revelation about family deceptions, and she does so in a uniquely masterful way.
There are several main characters in the story, and each one is developed extremely well by the author. The first chapter opens with Portia, a successful UK lawyer, as she looks around her old playroom in the Swiss home that she’d grown up in. Through Riddell’s vivid descriptions and engaging dialogue, we learn about Portia’s unsettled relationship with her teenage daughter Lucy, as well as her complicated history with siblings Vienne, Annie, and Lawrence. Each character is so well-portrayed that at times one can feel as if the novel is written from that person’s point of view, and then the novel shifts to focus more on another character, to which we become sympathetic or with whom we at least empathize.
The story unfolds somewhat slowly, but I don’t think that this is in the least a drawback in Water’s Edge. Certainly, my interest never waned while reading the book. After all, many great writers, such as Jane Austen, wrote novels that created wonderful character studies, intricate and subtle plots which revealed conflict and resolution in a well-paced manner, something that I believe Jane Riddell does extremely well. You want to find out what happens at the end of the novel, yet you enjoy—rather, savour— the story at every step.
The comparison to Jane Austen arises because there is something highly literary and almost classic about Water’s Edge. Riddell is an incredibly good writer and it was a pleasure to read such well-crafted literature. I found myself looking to see what other works she has written, not out of mere curiosity but with an interest in reading more of her works. Her next novel Chergui’s Child is in progress. I look forward to reading it.
Understated and elegant
Family life is not for the fainthearted. Just ask siblings Portia, Vienne, Annie and Lawrence, all of whom have returned to Brunnen, Switzerland to help their widowed mother Madalena celebrate the fortieth anniversary of her lakeside hotel. These adult children, all within waving distance of middle age, share a lifetime of love, rivalry, attachment and betrayal. Add the complications of their individual situations--failed or troubled marriages, resentful children, career confusion--and the reunion is fraught with tension before it even begins.
Author Jane Riddell's prose is precise and beautiful. She creates complex, flawed characters who believe they know themselves and those around them better than they actually do. Nowhere is this lack of knowledge more apparent than in the children's view of Madalena. They see their mother as a confident, self-sufficient woman who was strong enough to take the helm of the hotel after her husband's early death. They have no idea of the debilitating grief she suffered and still suffers to some degree. Madelena's regret and self-doubt provides the bass note against which all the other characters play.
While all of Riddell's characters fascinate, they are not equally likable. There's a grating, selfish quality about Portia in particular. She's behaved badly towards Vienne and goes to great lengths during the course of the story to keep her secret from being revealed. Despite all of her angst and plotting, I never got the sense that she actually regrets what she's done. Quite the opposite. It's almost as if she blames Vienne and believes her sister is the one complicating HER life. Michael, Vienne's husband, is even worse. In the end, he reveals something of the truth behind his cold, almost cruel behavior towards his wife, whom he professes to actually love, but it's difficult to accept given what we've seen of him. I think my biggest criticism of Riddell is that she does not play fair with Vienne. All of the characters learn something about themselves over the course of their stay in Brunnen. These revelations lead them to make conscious choices about the paths they'll take. This isn't true for Vienne. She never really "knows" the truth, and so true choice is denied her. She's living in hope, which is okay, I suppose. But it left a bitter taste in my mouth.
On the other hand, I have rarely read a book where the setting is so well done it becomes almost a character in its own right. Riddell does a fabulous job transporting her readers to Switzerland. We get to experience its amazing physical beauty and its unexpectedly gritty underside. Also, there's wonderful insight into Swiss culture. Switzerland was never a country I particularly yearned to visit, now it's near the top of my must-see list.
I enjoyed WATER'S EDGE and would recommend it to anyone interested in thoughtful, character-driven women's fiction.
Great contemporary read
This is more than just a great story. It is a story that makes us look at our relationships with our own family members. In this story we have Madalena who owns a lake resort in Switzerland. She is wanting to pass the business on to one of her children and retire. She invites them up for a celebration of their 40th year in business. She has three daughters and one son.
Portia is a divorced lawyer with a rebellious daughter. Her daughter unexpectedly ends up at the reunion because she is kicked out of boarding school.
Vienne is a famous concert pianist. All of her fame doesn’t make her happy because she isn’t sure if her husband really loves her. There are definitely some issues between Portia and Vienne.
Annie is part owner of a café. She is a chef. She is having personal relationship issues.
Lawrence is the only son and is a journalist.
All three of the girls live in the UK, Lawrence lives in Scotland. They all go back to Switzerland, but not without bringing their issues with them. Not only do we learn about their issues, but we learn that some of their underlying problems go as far back as to when they were younger and sent to boarding school. Add to this the fact that their mother has always felt guilty about sending them off to boarding school and you have the setup of a lot of drama.
Some of the issues get resolved and some of them don’t. Anyone reading this book will be able to find themselves in one of the characters or situations. The author does a great job of bringing us along to Switzerland. The reader feels like they are there. This is a book I would definitely recommend to other adults.
I received a copy to review. However, the opinions expressed here are mine from reading the book.
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