The Chronology of Water
By Lidia Yuknavitch
Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts, 2010
Paperback $16.95
The first sentence of the “Acknowledgements” in Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir The Chronology of Water reads, “If you have ever fucked up in your life, or if the great river of sadness that runs through us all has touched you, then this book is for you.” In other words, it’s for anyone reading this week’s column.
I sort of hate Lidia Yuknavitch, just a little, for what a masterpiece this book is. When I first read it, every 10, 20 pages or so I’d flip back to the beginning, paging through what had come before. I couldn’t figure out how she was doing what she was doing. I still can’t. It’s a point of frustration and awe.
In five sections and 54 short pieces (not one longer than 10 pages), she writes in the past tense, the future tense, the present tense, the first person, the second person. She writes in repetition. She writes one-word sentences. She makes declarations. She swears like no one has ever sworn before.
She writes, “Out of the sad sack of sad shit that was my life, I made a wordhouse.”
She writes, “Your life doesn’t happen in any kind of order . . . It’s all a series of fragments and repetitions and pattern formations. Language and water have this in common.”
She writes, “If you are like me. You do not deserve most of what happened or will . . .”
The Chronology of Water is about the body. And language. It’s about bringing language as close to the body as possible. It’s about violence. Sexuality. Addiction. It’s about loss. It’s about love. But never in the usual way. It’s about trying to swim away from the original pain, then swimming right toward it. It’s about the making of a warrior. A writer. An artist.
In its pages exist a miscarriage, an abusive father, a suicidal mother, a lost sister, alcohol and drugs, promiscuity and sexual escapades, and, eventually, a loving husband and a son. There exists a woman who survives, who swims, who writes.
There is no neat, narrative arc that will leave you feeling complete. In her final chapter, aptly titled, “Wisdom Is a Motherfucker,” she tells us what we already know. That tidy endings are for suckers. So are tidy lives. That sometimes we have to swim against the current of culture to make a life we can bear and inside of which we can make art and family and love.
If you read any memoir published in the past decade, it should be this one.
The Chronology of Water is available at your local independent bookseller. To find an independent bookstore near you, click here.
