Water Witches
By Chris Bohjalian
famous/prolific writer these days.
Unfortunately, I wasn't too impressed with this one. It tells the story of a lawyer-lobbiest, Scotty, who is trying to usher a ski-resort expansion project through the Vermont environmental approval process. He is well-known throughout the state as a development advocate, and he seems to have no scruples about environmental degradation as long as it is in the name of jobs for Vermonters. Which is weird because his wife and her family are renowned dowsers, people whose connection to nature is so deep that they can sense water veins hundreds of feet below the earth's surface.
The Powder Peak expansion seems to be easily working its way through the Vermont bureaucracy when, on an summer's evening chairlift ride to the top of Powder Peak, Scotty and his nine-year-old daughter spot something extraordinarily rare and beautiful: a mother catamount and her two cubs. Unwilling to "stifle" his daughter, Scotty trades his job and reputation and testifies about his sighting before the Environmental Commission.
While this story was competently told, there was a lot about it that didn't make sense. Particularly the catamounts. No one in Vermont thinks there are catamounts here; they've been extirpated from the state, and the entire east coast, for more than a century. But Bohjalian writes about them as if most Vermonters still believe there's a chance they exist. It's very strange. And then there's the characters, who seem to be obvious caricatures. And then the resolution, where Scotty learns the errors of his ways and begins to live up to his true values. Very mediocre book.
