Should the Waters Take Us by Stephanie Soileau
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
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“I think that we certainly talk about pregnancy and motherhood and reproductive freedoms. These are conversations that we are having, but within pretty narrow parameters. And what I liked about this idea was the opportunity to talk about some of those issues from a different lens than usual — not least because so many people’s minds are already made up about so many of these ideas, and that means that we can’t really have a conversation. But if we change the lens, if we change the approach, if we change the givens and the parameters that we go in with, then we get to have a conversation.
“When I sat down to write this novel, it ended up going in a completely different direction than what I had intended. I’d originally wanted to write an unrequited love story. As I was writing the first few scenes, I was like, “Oh, these people actually both love each other, so that’s not working. Also, I really feel the need to explore how this character has come to love in this way, and to deny herself love in this way.
“I am obsessed with old Hollywood. I used to love Nick at Night and all the old classic TV shows. I’ve always been fascinated by that, but I’ve also always been fascinated by the fact that we all have a behind-the-scenes. And when I was touring for All the Bright Places, which is a young adult book I wrote years ago, the thing I heard most from my readers was, “Thank you for letting me know that it’s okay to be messy. It’s okay to be me, that, you know, I feel seen, and I matter.” And I just kept thinking about the fact that it’s so sad that so many people, well, all of us actually, have a behind-the-scenes that we aren’t always comfortable showing or sharing with other people. And so I wanted to write something about that. And then I thought, oh, I could combine it with my love for Hollywood because God knows there’s a lot going on behind the scenes there.”
