The Weight of Water

The Weight of Water is a 1997 bestselling novel by Anita Shreve. Half of the novel is historical fiction that speculates about the true events of the Smuttynose Island murders of 1873. In March 1873, two Norwegian-born women living on the desolate island of Smuttynose on the Isles of Shoals, a group of islands off the coast of New Hampshire, were brutally murdered. A third woman, named Maren Hontvedt, survived by cowering in a sea cave until dawn... more

The Weight of Water is a 1997 bestselling novel by Anita Shreve. Half of the novel is historical fiction that speculates about the true events of the Smuttynose Island murders of 1873. In March 1873, two Norwegian-born women living on the desolate island of Smuttynose on the Isles of Shoals, a group of islands off the coast of New Hampshire, were brutally murdered. A third woman, named Maren Hontvedt, survived by cowering in a sea cave until dawn. The murdered women were Karen Christensen, Maren's elder sister, and Anethe Christensen, Maren's sister-in-law. A man named Louis Wagner was tried and hanged for their murders. More than a century later, Jean, a magazine photographer working on a photoessay about the murders, returns to the Isles with her husband, Thomas, and young daughter, Billie, aboard a boat skippered by Thomas' brother, Rich, who has brought along his girlfriend, Adaline. As Jean becomes immersed in the details of the 19th-century murders, unspoken emotions begin to... less