Newspaper Page Text
FIRST NOVEL IS A FINE BOOK
Life Without Water is a new, first novel by
Nancy Peacock, who lives in Chapel Hill
cleaning houses and clerking in a gourmet
foods store. The story is told by Cedar, the
young daughter of Sara, a woman of the 70s,
who mourns her best-friend older brother
killed in Vietnam and is attracted to men
more interested in keeping their pipes filled
with pot than with water. Hence the title,
which refers to the big, old country North
Carolina house where Cedar and Sara live
first with Sol, Cedar's father if not Sara s hus
band and then with Daniel and another
couple of model, hardworking hippie
craftspeople who represent sort of the best of
the live-on-the-land-and-make-it-by-hand
brand of alternative lifestyle.
By letting Cedar tell the story, Peacock
gives us an unblinking look at these adults as
they go about living their lives outside the
mainstream, thus deciding the kind of life
Cedar, too, will lead. Cedar thinks it’s a pretty
good life, given the
vagaries of the big
folks, and in spite of
its non-conformity,
there’s a whole lot of
family values going
on. It’s easy these
days to take cheap
shots a,. the ’60s and
70s, especially at
those who bought
into the romanti
cism of the alterna
tive lifestyles and
lived on the land or
in the city in ways
that would make
them less dependent
on the largess of cor
porate and govern
ment Americ(k)a.
Peacock avoids retro-
bashing neatly by letting Cedar tell the story
and succeeds in bringing us a fresh, honest
book about people trying to live life in spite
of being human.
Life Without Water is, simply, a good
book, a good read that transcends its sub
ject matter to reach into the human heart
with wit and compassion and -how us the
lives of others in a way that makes us un
derstand our own better.
The slender volume comes equipped
with book jacket praise from all the right
Southern authors — Lee Smith, Clyde
Edgerton, Louise Shivers — and is pub
lished at $16.95 by Atlanta’s (and Cox’s)
Longstreet Press, which usually runs more
toward “Billy Bob’s Guidebook To The Best
Olympic Atlanta Redneck Cigar Bars”
than this kind of from-the-heart first novel
by an unknown. The New York Times
picked Life Without Water as one of the
notable books of 1996 and gave it a great
review, even if slightly redolent of that
whiff of a sniff that flavors most of its ref
erences to anything that, you know, comes
from the South.
Nancy Peacock will be in Athens
Thursday, Dec. 12, to sign copies of Life
Without Water at 7:30 p.m. at The Old
Black Dog bookstore in Five Points, prob
ably the last author ever to have a book
signing there, since the store is closing for
ever Christmas Eve.
From her home in Chapel Hill Satur
day, Peacock fielded the obligatory phone
call to discuss a book she finished in 1994
and now is a sweet intrusion on her present
life, which includes the attempt to write
her next novel while continuing to clean
houses and hand over upscale food.
No, it’s not autobiographical at all; she
made it up using pieces of people she’s
known through the years. Yes, she’s getting
a lot of teenage fans, too, in spite of the
adult content of the book. No, the new
novel is nothing like Life Without Water
and is certainly not told through the eyes
of a child. Yes, having to promote and talk
about the old book interferes with writing
the new one, mainly because it upsets her
routine, which between the houses and the
food doesn’t leave
a lot of quality
time for writing,
unless she can get
to bed by 8:30 so
she can get up at
4:30 to make a cup
of coffee and com
pose herself before
her Mac portable
(a forerunner of
the laptop).
Life Without
Water went
through three
drafts, including
procrastination,
during a two-year
period. It began as
a short story pub
lished in the Si.
Andrews Review in
1987, and she had the idea of turning it
into a novel, which she finally started try
ing to do around 1991.
Peacock, in addition to her other day
jobs, teaches some writing classes, although
those are hard to get, since she is not a
college graduate.
Somehow, snatching early morning
time in front of her obsolete computer —
she still uses the yellow pad when she gets
stuck and needs to work her way out —
Peacock has written a lovely book free of
false notes and honest as a late-nigh' con
versation when all the usual evasions and
masks are laid aside for the human heart
to be revealed.
Come meet Nancy Peacock as the Old
Black Dog Bookstore ends its run. Buy her
book and let her inscribe it. Life Without
Water will make a fine and affordable gift
to yourself or to somebody else who is able
to take delight in revelations that ring true
regarding the human condition.
Pete McCommons
Editor, Flagpole Magazine
Nancy Peacock will sign copies of Life With
out Water at the Old Black Dog Bookstore,
1700 S. Lumpkin St., Thursday, Dec. 12, at
7:30 p.m.
■
SCss jff*
ersonal ad
Give us a call
FLAGPOLE r r, [1