Kilbourn Public Library Book Club

The Kilbourn Public Library Book Discussion Group is reading We Are Water by Wally Lamb for the October selection.   We Are Water is an intricate and layered portrait of marriage, family, and the inexorable need for understanding and connection. 


In middle age, Annie Oh--wife, mother, and outsider artist--has shaken her family to its core.  After twenty-seven years of marriage and three children, Annie has fallen in love with Viveca, the wealthy, cultured, confident Manhattan art dealer who orchestrated her professional success. 


Annie and Viveca plan to wed in the Oh family's hometown of Three Rivers, Connecticut, where gay marriage has recently been legalized.  But the impending wedding provokes some very mixed reactions and opens a Pandora's box of toxic secrets--dark and painful truths that have festered below the surface of the Ohs' lives.


With humor and breathtaking compassion, Wally Lamb brilliantly captures the essence of human experience in vivid and unforgettable characters struggling to find hope and redemption in the aftermath of trauma and loss.  (From the publisher.)


Family, tragedy, art, violence, secrets, love, and transformation are the themes at the heart of We Are Water.  By keeping things to ourselves and by sharing them inappropriately, are we doomed to keep repeating the mistakes of the past?  How are Anna's secrets both destructive and productive? 


What is the attraction between Anna and Viveca?  What does Viveca offer Anna that Orion cannot?  What are your impressions of Viveca?


What is the significance of the title, We Are Water?  How many meanings does it have?  How does it connect to the final scene in the book?


Let us know what you think of We Are Water.