Calvin Barry Schwartz emerges on the scene of accomplished novelists with his debut work Vichy Water, a densely intercut story of childhood friends with unique backgrounds finding trust and friendship in a changing world.
Schwartz draws from his personal life experiences many mystifying accounts of places, events, cognitive development, and spiritual awakenings, linking his characters with some sometimes hard-to-follow ways of traversing the world in their own set of reality. His work is very complex, often leading the reader into whirlpools of thoughts and events just to somehow weave previous experience into later travel accounts. With intimate knowledge of Rutgers University, Schwartz sets many of the moments in New Jersey with the time period of the latter part of the last century, obviously from his own personal memory.
His personal travels are based on details of foreign places known only to locals or perhaps the most discerning travelers, with a staggering amount of minutiae, and he shares the details of many diverse places as the backdrop for his characters. Vichy was the capital of the French collaborationist regime during World War II, being located in the south of France, since Germany occupied most of northern France. The region has been known for centuries for having water and mineral springs that are believed to have healing powers and revitalizing qualities. The spirits of the characters are metaphorically immersed in the innate qualities of such a water bottle.
Filled with hidden meanings, intricate plots and subplots, insights on dozens of topics including sexuality, hidden powers, alien life, religious strongholds and conflicts, racial and ethnic coexistence, and basic good vs. evil. , Schwartz weaves his views into a fabric of his performances. . In a herculean task of bringing his life experiences to the characters of Vichy Water, Schwartz takes readers into his personal way of thinking. His thoughts are intertwined as if they were imaginary pathways of logic, and he takes every opportunity to embellish the structure of the work to its fullest platform to articulate his experiences.
The cover showing an original composition of a bottle, with a sepia-toned street lamp, two mysterious characters on a park bench through the distorted diffracted light of a transparent water bottle is a very fitting work for the novel, and cradles the 380 pages into the surreal world it creates. This book is for the experienced reader looking for something different and challenging.
Title: Vichy water
Author: Calvin Barry Schwartz