Water Memory: A Novel by Tom Strelich (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Water Memory: A Novel by Tom Strelich
• Edward M. Bury (bio)

water memory: a novel
Tom Strelich
Owl Canyon Press
https://www.owlcanyonpress.com/product-page/water-memory-paperback
167 pages; Print, $15.00

Fiction structured around a society grappling with some kind of dystopian challenge—a climate catastrophe, an economic meltdown, the breakdown of democracy, a renegade virus, propaganda overload, individual freedom quashed or curtailed—generally contains chilling scenes, strikingly nefarious characters, and plot development based on day-to-day survival and shrouded in impending doom and calamity. Writers concoct these bizarre tales with the intention of forecasting what awaits mankind should society continue with war, oppression, widespread disruption to the environment, and other large-scale affronts to the common good and a normal way of life.

The world described in Water Memory touches upon some of the maladies noted above, yet without the devastating fallout or breakdown of society. The dystopian condition presented can be characterized as one where the landscape of the United States (and apparently the rest of the world) is thrown off course—somewhat slightly but definitively—following a global seismic shift that reverses the earth's magnetic poles, causing everyone to grapple with memory loss of some sort. Remarkably, despite this cataclysmic event, life as we know it generally continues: businesses and farms operate somewhat as normal, local and national governments function, retail commerce continues, a lesbian couple strengthens their bond, and an empowered, larger-than-life evangelical preacher maintains a commanding presence over his flock on a sprawling campus in central California.

Furthermore, given the memory upheaval taking place, progress from a technological perspective abounds and becomes a part of everyday life. Artificial intelligence is incorporated to perform basic chores needed to maintain a well-groomed lawn and even fertilize and cultivate large vegetable fields, while those planning to engage legal counsel "could buy a LawyerBot app to [End Page 75] automatically analyze case law, conjure damages, counter sue, and appeal ad infinitum." And, the characters introduced within this seemingly strange new world are mostly presented as everyday men and women and have nothing in common with the ghouls, zombies, and decidedly frightening creatures that populate and drive the action in most well-known post-apocalyptic tales.

Author Tom Strelich sets his story during some year in the early twenty-first century, as there are passing references to Walmart, Trader Joe's, TikTok, and even Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos; yet the novel presents a somewhat clouded insight into the history behind an inhabited underground world that somehow exists and even prospers without access to fundamentals like sources of food and water and any interaction with the people and the four-legged and winged creatures living up on terra firma. Rising—literally out of the ground—into the sort of "soft dystopian" society is this community of people who physically removed themselves from the world by building a fully functional underground city called Mustard Seed, located near the real town of Bakersfield. Established in the 1950s, the storybook small town—actually a parallel world with a sky and moon as well as a bowling alley and town square—was created following an earthquake and subsequent flood; it is the reoccurrence of these two natural phenomena early in Water Memory that compelled the subterranean survivalist townsfolk to emerge and return to live life on the surface.

Strelich more than likely was inspired to name the community based on the message behind a famous biblical parable that equates the growth of a mustard seed into a large plant with the kingdom of God being born and developed from small and humble beginnings. From a realistic agricultural perspective, some species of the mustard plant are considered invasive and actively eradicated in parts of California, so one can ascertain that the fictional village presented in Water Memory metaphorically prevailed and thrived despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles. After the residents of the underground colony emerge to the surface, the reader learns that a giant cross once marked the location of Mustard Seed, built over a former pet cemetery.

Leading the Mustard Seed exodus is the complicated protagonist of Water Memory, Hertell Daggert, the only person on earth...