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Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Michael Parker's Latest Novel Garners Favorable Reviews from Magazines and Newspapers Across the Country



Last month, English Professor Michael Parker published his fifth novel, The Watery Part of the World, and it has drawn the attention of the national media. The book's website offers the following synopsis:

"Michael Parker has created a wholly original world from two known facts: (1) Theodosia Burr Alston, daughter of the controversial vice president Aaron Burr, disappeared in 1813 while en route by schooner from South Carolina to New York; and (2) in 1970, two elderly white women and one black man were the last townspeople to leave a small barrier island off the coast of North Carolina.

In this fiction based on historical fact, Parker weaves a tale of adventure and longing as he charts one hundred and fifty years in the life and death of an island and its inhabitants—the descendants of Theodosia Burr Alston and those of the freed man whose family would be forever tethered to hers.

It’s a tale of pirates and slaves, treason and treasures, madness and devotion, that takes place on a tiny island battered by storms, infested with mosquitoes, and cut off from the world—as difficult to get to as it is impossible to leave for those who call it home. From Theodosia’s capture at sea to the passionate lives of her great-great-great-granddaughters to the tender story of the black man who cares for them all his days, this is an inspired novel about love, trust, and the often tortuous bonds of family and community."

The New York Times Book Review calls Parker's prose "vivid with local color," and The Los Angeles Times notes that "The entire novel has a blue-green, underwater feel, a timeless forgetfulness."

For more about The Watery Part of the World, its critical reception, and Parker's other works, please visit his website.