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There are not many stories about the people and the place I am from, but Stephanie Soileau delivers a novel so close to home that I had to put it down multiple times to catch my breath. Should the Waters Take Us captures such a particular experience growing up in the forgotten places of rural South Louisiana. That is, until a disaster strikes–be it a devastating oil spill or a catastrophic hurricane. But in between these headlines, life moves on in these places. Families plant generational roots and are tied to the land and water for their livelihoods because it’s all they know. It’s hard to talk about this book without getting personal. Soileau has given me a book that is three o’clock coffee milk at my grandparents’ house; it’s trying to eavesdrop on their conversations but they keep slipping into French so that I can’t understand; it’s Zydeco and SwampPop on the radio in the backyard during a crawfish boil; it’s 14 on and 7 off of so many people I knew on oil rigs in the Gulf; it’s blue tarps and days of clean up after another hurricane; it’s gumbo and fishing camps and family and all the beautiful, messy bits of our culture. It is a brilliant novel!

Should the Waters Take Us by Stephanie Soileau, (List Price: $30, Doubleday, 9780385551786, July 2026)

Reviewed by Kelsey, Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg, FL