I read this book for a book club selection. The protagonist is Desdemona 'Dez' Hart Spaulding, an artist who has studied in Paris in the 1920s, and the setting is the Depression-era years between the wars in a Massachusetts town, Cascade, which may become one of the four towns intentionally flooded to make way for the Quabbin reservoir to slake the thirst of a burgeoning population in Boston. Dez is an artist during a time with women didn't have many rights - particularly if they had few resources and skills, and just beginning to exercise choices and feel the responsibility of those. She's feeling more reluctant about her hasty marriage to her apothecary-owning husband Asa, who has also been left her father's playhouse that she married Asa in order to save, once a vibrant seat of summer culture in mid-Massachusetts, with illustrious Shakespearean actors. The plot escalates more with the impending selection of the town, and the intersections of the way the individuals respond to the force of change as well interwoven with those of the main characters' actions - and Dez applying her artistic talents to put attention on the situation beyond the few square miles they operate in. I wondered if I would have appreciated this book had I not been to some of the locations in the book; it is a testament to the author's rigorous fact-checking of these impressive details that definitely made the story vivid. This novel has everything needed to capture and hold my interest and has the elements of a good story. Many themes including love , betrayal and loyalty. Art creates and a reservoir destroys . Independence and conformity . What will happen to those who live in Cascade? Trying to decide how I feel about Dez' choices for herself and the ripple effect they have on her marriage. That was what she felt she needed to do to be true to herself. My heart felt sad for Asa at times as well as for Jacob.
What do You think about Cascade A Novel (2000)?
I began reading this book, but found it poorly written and abandoned it.
—naa
One of the best books I have read this year. Many twists and turns.
—KIWI
I really liked this book but sometimes I had to re-read parts.
—Liam
