Book Review : Srdjan Smajic - We Dream of Water (2015)

Order WE DREAM OF WATER here

I pass by the swords and pistols and think about the times men called each other out on duels. I think about the men who got themselves killed for nothing. Honor, they called it.

Who knows their names anymore?

Not me.

Moving to Montreal in 2002 was the achievement of a lifelong dream for my 19 year-old self. I longed for anonymity, a life that would allow me to alienate everyone I know, turn heels and start over if I wanted to. It's exactly what this city gave me. It's what other places do, they harbor the hopes and dreams of lonely people. I've never been to New Orleans *, but it's a city I've discovered through the media and other people's creativity for a long as I've been able to watch television. I've never heard of Srdjan Smajic's New Orleans, though. His novel We Dream of Water is anything but gritty realism, yet it feels like the most honest portrayal I've read of the Big Easy yet.

We Dream of Water follows Jimmy Petrovich, a rudderless man adrift in post-Katrina New Orleans. The city is rebuilding and finding its balance again, but Jimmy is caught in a cycle of depression, addiction and self-destructing behavior he can't seem to get out of. Redemption comes knocking one night during a costumed party when journalist Ron Dan offers him what seems like a simple job: befriend legendary sax player Walter "Mongoose" Johns in order to fact check and extract as many earnest stories as he can out of him. Dan seemingly has outstayed his welcome with the elderly musician. The reality behind this eccentric demand is much bleaker, though and will put Jimmy at the heart of a nasty game of cat-and-mouse.

I've heard a lot of people say that if a novel doesn't enrapture them in the first ten pages, they will put it down. Putting down We Dream of Water before page 50 would be a mistake. It's a tad of a slow starter because Srdjan Smajic has ambitions of portraying the entire scope of New Orleans through the eyes of Jimmy, who is very much a metaphor for the Big Easy's post-Katrina's brokenness. Jimmy's narration can be annoyingly whiny and forcefully dark (especially when he has nothing to do **), but it's important to always remember his words and actions can't be taken at face value. Almost everything in We Dream of Water is allegoric, which is either challenging or enthralling, depending on the chapter you're on.

Living hand to mouth and thinking i's romantic, heroic, reckless, it's why I came to New Orleans. I came to cut the safety lines and see which way I'd drift. I came to lose myself so I can find myself. What I found was that most of the bums in this city, the weepers and the moaners, the crazies and the druggie, the pan-handlers and dead-beats and drop-outs, they all had the same brilliant idea, same burning itch they needed to scratch. Seeing that is a kind of relief in the end. It helps you lower your expectations, feel better about dropping the bar as the years go by. You tell yourself at least you tried, the best you can do when you're surrounded by failures is to fail on your own terms, fail from grace more gracefully than the next asshole. Just don't kid yourself. Those crazy stories you think you'll tell your grandkids about living hard and dirty in the Big Easy, they've all been told and told better before you came along.

If you work with Srdjan Smajic and persevere until detective Everett Hrebik shows up, you're in for a treat. We Dream of Water throws some slimy spitballs at experienced mystery readers. See, part of mystery reading is a game played between the author and his reader. A competition if you will. Will you find whatever the hell's going on before it is revealed? Srdjan Smajic builds unbelievable tension between Ron and "Mongoose" Johns while leaving both Jimmy and the reader out of it, rendering you paranoid about every character lying, deluding themselves or telling half-truths to Jimmy. The paranoia and latent melancholy of We Dream of Water is second to none.

Think of We Dream of Water as True Detective meets Jacob's Ladder if the monsters all had human faces. It is an original and poetic noir that remains accessible and pleasant to read despite its literary ambitions. I thought its narrator was obvious and quite dissonant with the ambitions of the novel at times, but Srdjan Smajic's endgame of portraying the broken pieces of post-Katrina New Orleans is still a success. Not exactly the novel you should be reading if you're looking for fedoras and femmes fatales, but if you've grown tired of them and are looking for something that challenges the boundaries of noir, you should consider giving We Dream of Water a go. It's an unpretentious, bleak and bold literary noir that will keep you guessing. 

* I might go this year, though.

** Issue known by experts as the Pizzolatto quandary.