THE WATERSMITH

Yance Wyatt was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. He studied fiction at the University of Cambridge and the University of Southern California, where he has gone on to serve as a Professor of Writing and the Director of the Writing Center. As a two-time finalist for the Lit/South award and a fiction editor with the Southern culture magazine The Blue Mountain Review, he seeks to acquire the best new stories from the South. His own stories have appeared in dozens of nationally circulated literary journals and received several Pushcart Prize nominations. The Watersmith is his first novel. Visit him @yancewyatt or at www.yancewyatt.com.

“The Watersmith is a propulsive and lyrical novel with a palpable sense of place and music in every sentence. This book grabs you from the opening and never lets go.” —Silas House, author of Lark Ascending, winner of the 2023 Southern Book Award

“All the best books are about three things: love, memory, and desire. The Watersmith checks all the boxes, and more. Hard to believe it’s a first novel.” —Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish, winner of the 2019 Harper Lee Award

“A wholly unique and lovely work of literary fiction. The Watersmith is an outstanding debut novel. Don’t miss it.” —Southern Literary Review

“An unflinching and highly engaging look at family and legacy and ways we cope with great pain; Wyatt’s lively prose and vivid characters know how to pull a reader in.” —Aimee Bender, New York Times bestselling author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

“The Watersmith is a haymaker to the heart and a warm bourbon burn to the soul. The prose steams off the page and hangs in the air like the angel’s share. I simply loved it.” —Driver Williams, lead guitarist and hit songwriter for the Eric Church Band

“The Watersmith blends the hallmarks of great storytelling—emotion, lyricism, and good old-fashioned hurt—into a winding and weaving tale of family, the search for truth, and the lengths we go to salvage what we have. Wyatt has the sensibility to dive into both our deepest fears and our greatest loves.” —Michael Farris Smith, author of Lay Your Armor Down and Desperation Road

“A surprising novel about an underdog’s self-reinvention and the ways in which the dead live on.” —Foreword Reviews

“The Watersmith is a most elemental novel in that it explores what is basic to our existence: life and death, guilt and forgiveness, and, finally, hard-won acceptance of loss, and so Wyatt’s amazingly original and innovative use of the elements of fire and water are dead-on perfect. You will find yourself immersed in the current of this beautifully well-wrought debut.” —Marlin Barton, author of Children of Dust and Pasture Art

“Wyatt reshapes the dark terrain of the Southern Gothic into something uniquely his own. This is not merely a promising debut, it’s the arrival of a fully realized literary voice. A stunning work of imagination, this novel is extraordinary.” —Andrew Siegrist, author of We Imagined It Was Rain

“Darkly gorgeous, richly atmospheric, and steeped in the tradition of the great Southern Gothic novels, The Watersmithis a spectacular debut from a singular literary voice. In rich, lyrical prose cut with dark humor, Wyatt creates a world that is wholly his own, vividly real and yet stunningly unique. The Smoky Mountain landscape lives and breathes. The Calloway family will break your heart. A deeply moving exploration of family, legacy, and loss…and the lengths we’ll go to keep love alive.” —Lindsey Lee Johnson, author of The Most Dangerous Place on Earth

“This transportive and lyrical novel gripped me from its first line to its last. The Watersmith is as surprising as it is propulsive, as heartbreaking as it redemptive, and as inimitable as it is timeless. I will be thinking about this novel for a long time.” —Amy Meyerson, internationally bestselling author of The Water Lies

“An inherently fascinating read from start to finish, Wyatt’s character-driven storytelling elevates The Watersmith to the level of literary excellence.” —Midwest Book Review

“This damn book broke my heart…in the best way possible. Like some sort of midnight meeting between William Faulkner and Tom Robbins, The Watersmith reveals an American South that is by turns haunting, humorous, sinister, and intoxicating. With each improbable turn in the story, I marveled at Wyatt’s ability to create a protagonist who feels so familiar and sympathetic, even as his choices take him farther afield from reality. I guarantee you’ve never read a book like this!” —JJ Strong, author of Us Kids Know

1. Why does Jack banish Jack Junior after Jolene’s accident? Is it warranted? Does he regret it?

2. What forms does Jack Junior take throughout the rest of the story? In what order?

3. What becomes of people when they die according to Jolene? Jack Junior? Jack?

4. How does Jack’s relationship with Jolene’s brother Percy evolve?

5. What does water come to represent by the end of the story? Does Jack really believe this?

6. In your own life, which natural element are you drawn to most: earth, wind, fire, or water? Why?

Read an excerpt from The Watersmith

Read an interview with Yance Wyatt, author of The Watersmith