Listen for Water
By Marie Beswick Arthur
A 15-year-old gifted teen and her negligent, irresponsible mother, hurtling towards disaster and, ultimately, redemption.
Facing eviction from their low-rent apartment, Ray’s impulsive behaviour sends them both on the ride of their lives, during which a tampering incident has horrifying consequences. They fall off the Earth, lost to the forest, and embark on an emotional and physical quest for survival.
Each rises to the challenge in unexpected ways, discovering surprising things about themselves and their past. Ray is gifted with the opportunity for a do-over. And Koda? Only time will tell.
Award-winning writer Marie Beswick Arthur has written hundreds of Lifebooks for children who were wards of the government. Listen For Water pays homage to this collective.
For fans of Bastard Out of Carolina, Lullabies for Little Criminals, and Regretting You
All I wanted was to be loved by someone who smelled like lemons, not tolerated by a joystick-wielding alien sitting in an ancient armchair hurtling down the highway in an airless bucket of tin.
After a long silence I got over the frustration of who made her Queen of the Plaid Throne and scrambled around, making a little nest with an ancient fake fur coat that had been tossed onto the floor of the trailer. It poke-scratched me with something like the staple of a dry-cleaning tag, but I wasn’t deterred—knew a deal when I felt it. Though the lining was stale smelling it was soft, silky, and luxurious.
Chair envy was replaced by a surge of greedy happiness for having claimed Coat. Now that it was mine it took on a personality and became the protagonist of my story. Chair, by virtue of being hers, became the antagonist.
—Marie Beswick Arthur, Listen for Water
About Marie
Once upon a time there was a bio of an award-winning writer who wanted to share with everyone that each of their cells is story. Reading and writing from age four, she became the timid girl who held in her feelings as if they were prisoners within the castle of herself.
When she was all grown up, she made a secret promise that some day she'd story-tell the energy of the neglected and resilient children she worked with. One day, after she'd worked for years on dozens of books with lots of amazing people, she sat down to keep that promise. And then, with her heart in three countries, she entered a relationship with gratitude and lived happily ever after with her love of lifetime learning.
Marie Beswick Arthur has been recipient of the Brendon Donnelly Award for Children's Literature (Poetry) and the Calgary Writers Association Short Fiction (short story). She spends part of each year in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and part in Calgary, Canada.
"Unforgettable prose, masterfully composed... A survival story in more ways than one, Listen for Water is a fascinating study of a mother/daughter relationship as it changes, reverses, and grows. Ray’s use of a self-help survival book in a real survival situation adds humour and strengthens our appreciation of the love between the two formerly at-odds protagonists. An impressive first novel by a talented author.
CORA TAYLOR
Award-winning author of Julie and Summer of the Mad Monk
"A superbly written story by an exceptional Canadian author, Listen For Water is a atmospheric journey of survival, forgiveness and redemption. Prepare to laugh, to cry, and to never forget this incredible mother and daughter.”
JOYLENE NOWELL BUTLER
Métis author of Matowauk, Woman Who Cries
“I wrote Listen for Water first as the reflection of mother and daughter relationships and my hope that dysfunctional relationships could be repaired… and secondly as a promise to someday write a Lifebook that went to many, rather than to individual clients in the child welfare system where I worked.
"But the characters came to me, the first two, seemingly out of nowhere. They would not leave. And then after a couple of years I blended another novel I had with it, and over the years the two became seamless.... The characters are informed by my own life experience…as an adoptive mom, a mom who knows the system, and woman who had a childhood where she (as in I) was neglected, and where I parented my mother, but I experienced severe neglect.
"I read and wrote when I was four, and I stayed out of the way and out of trouble, but I never got to develop or have a childhood the way many others do. I felt like Dakota was a piece of me, and that Ray was my mother (but in a faraway way) and I also felt, as a mother (when I became one) that I could also have tendencies to turn off and not be who my kids wanted or needed me to be.
"I think that underneath it all, the storyteller in me wanted to connect with all mothers and daughters, (all women are daughters) to share the complexity of relationships and the way we all have choices to grow, and sometimes we don't make those choices ourselves. Our ancestors (my gypsy ones for sure these days) are a huge part of our lives, because they are still with us in our code, and yet we don't always think that. We think we are new people, interesting and unique, but the uniqueness is a combo of that code and all the codes before us.
"I also wanted to express neglect through humour, for without it we shrivel up and close the book of life. Sarcasm, learning-intellect, friends in places you'd never expect, and inner strength and getting comfortable with the discomfort is something I have found to be huge in my growth, necessary for it.”
—Marie Beswick Arthur
Available in ebook & paperback
About Ingenium Books
Learn more about the publisher behind Listen for Water (by Marie Beswick Arthur) and other great books.
Get the Ingenium BooksLetter
Stay in the know with our weekly newsletter of publishing, author, and book news. Opt out any time.
Ready to
Publish With Us?
Ready to be an Ingenium Books author? Explore partnership publishing options with us today.
