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Watershed: A Novel Audiobook
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Set in 1937 in rural Tennessee, with the construction of a monumental dam serving as background—a cinematically biblical effort to harness elemental forces and bring power to the people—Watershed delivers a gripping story of characters whose ambitions and yearnings threaten to overflow the banks of their time and place.
Nathan, an engineer hiding from his past, and Claire, a small-town housewife, struggle to find their footing in the newly electrified, job-hungry, post-Depression South. As Nathan wrestles with the burdens of a secret guilt and tangled love, Claire struggles to balance motherhood and a newfound freedom that awakens ambitions and a sexuality she hadn’t known she possessed.
The arrival of electricity in the rural community—where violence, prostitution, and dog-fighting are commonplace—thrusts together the federal and local worlds, in an evocative feat of storytelling in the vein of Kent Haruf’s Plainsong and Ron Rash’s Serena.
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“[An] engrossing historical novel…The dam’s holdups raise the stakes of the story, and waiting to learn the characters’ fates, which are wrapped up in the success of the project, makes this historical tale gripping.”
— Foreword Reviews
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“Readers looking for vivid historicals full of emotional turmoil in the vein of Wallace Stegner will enjoy this impressive novel.“
— Publishers Weekly -
“Beautifully written, with deeply sympathetic characters and a richly described Tennessee landscape, Watershed brings a unique chapter in American history to vivid life.”
— Booklist -
“Their stories intersect in suspenseful, heartfelt fashion.”
— BookPage -
“Narrator Christian Baskous’s sonorous tone and soft Southern accent capture this heartfelt story…Baskous intuits the inner conflicts of Nathan and Claire.”
— AudioFile -
“Lyrical descriptions of the Tennessee landscape contrast vividly with the harsher reality of day-to-day life in a region and time almost exotic in its isolation.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“Mark Barr’s vivid and heartfelt Watershed is the most engrossing and assured debut I’ve read in a long, long time.”
— Smith Henderson, author of Fourth of July Creek -
“A novel about change in many forms―personal, technological, and societal―and it handles them all with aplomb. A quintessentially American story…it reveals Barr as a writer of uncommon grace, skill, and promise.”
— Doug Dorst, author of S
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About Mark Barr
Mark Barr has been awarded fellowships from Blue Mountain Center, I-Park Artists Enclave, Jentel Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Millay Colony, and Yaddo, and holds an MFA from Texas State University. He lives with his wife and sons in Arkansas, where he develops software and bakes bread.
About Christian Baskous
Christian Baskous is an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator. His theatrical credits include numerous roles in the New York Shakespeare Festival, Circle in the Square, the Kennedy Center, and Theater for the New City, as well as other regional theaters. His film and television work includes appearances in Glory, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Law & Order, Swan’s Crossing, and Swift Justice.