What do you mean, it’s not a spy novel?
Back cover of A Life on Water
Then what is A Life on Water?
Plenty of novels focus on female Allied spies who made enormous contributions to the war effort. Authors of such novels include Pan Jenoff, Kate Quinn, and Mara Timon.
In sync with the spy genre, Ardis Lowney, the protagonist of A Life on Water, is trained to be a spy at Camp X, a facility in Canada that trained Allied operatives, including Americans. Camp X was portrayed in a TV series of the same name. Records show that Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond series, as well as Kim Philby, Ian Bromwell, and other spies trained at Camp X.
While Ardis trains and interacts with them as a spy, would you rate A Life on Water as a spy novel?
Definitely SOME Romance THERE
In her life as a student, as a spy-in-training, and as a spy in 1940s Portugal, Ardis has interactions with men who are definitely interested in her. They include Roberto Garcia, her superior officer; Carlos, her friend who is a priest; and Manfred, a Nazi diplomat attached to the German embassy in Lisbon. Each take more than a passing interest in her.
While she was still a student of marine biology at the University of British Columbia, her boyfriend was Peter, an indigenous student, and her passion was sea turtles.
Which of these relationships progresses to a hot and steamy sex scene that is a prerequisite for the romance genre? Each man, in his own way, wants her. Can Ardis operate above that fray? Well geeze, maybe it is safe to say that A Life on Water is a romance novel, after all. He-he-he.
ThERE’S Action AND Military
In A Life on Water, the protagonist: participates in a shoot-out with the enemy; is the target of a U-boat attack; and travels on an American submarine. True, the intense action and military manoeuvres of World War II do take place far from Portugal, which was neutral during the war. Are you looking for a good ol’ military action drama? A Life on Water might be for you, and it might not.
ONE READER THINKS IT’S a Religious Drama
Part of the backstory is set in Rome and Anagni, Italy and involves Carlos, a priest, and Laurenza, a nun. Mmmm THAT sounds steamy. Four chapters are dedicated to Carlos’s story. The reader gets inside his head and learns of his conflicts. Why, though? Is it to promote a religious doctrine? Not at all. There is no theological proselytizing in this story. It shows his relationship with his vocation is complicated. It is an exploration of the absurd.
Then What is It?
A Life on Water does offer a taste of a Bildungsroman in that it shows the coming of age of Ardis, who aims to become a marine biologist but is swept up into the war like most everyone else at that time.
At that time is a key descriptor of its underpinnings as a historical fiction. A Life on Water certainly takes you back to a time, not so long ago, that seems simpler and less absurd in that people knew what they stood for and were willing to give their lives to that ideal.
An aspect of the story that most interests me is the magic realism. In the first chapter, there’s a turtle that communicates telepathically. Later on, a mythical monster of Portuguese origin known as the Adamastor distresses Xisco, the stable boy. The captain of the ship that carries Ardis to her “after life” is Charon, the pilot of the punt in Greek mythology that carries the dead across the river Styx to the final judgment.
A Life on Water is replete with such elements that carry alternate meaning. You can read it as a literal story and it works. Or you can read it like a set of clues. It’s puzzle fiction, well, sort of. One thing is certain. A Life on Water is a genre-blending novel.
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