The Covenant Of Water

 I listened to A Covenant Of Water by Abraham Verghese. The book was read by the author and it was almost 32 hours long. Most of the story is set in Kerala, a region of India very close to the southern tip of the country. The story starts with an 11 year old girl who lives with her mother. Since her father died, her father's brother inherits his house. Her uncle has arranged for a marriage for the girl, Maryama, to an man several hours away via river boat. Maryama is one of the main characters in this story. The story starts out in 1905. Maryama arrives at her new home. Her husband's sister arranged the marriage. Her husband is still mourning the death of his first wife and he is much older than her. Maryama takes care of his son. Eventually she has children and grandchildren. The story ends in 1975 with Maryama's granddaughter, also named Maryama, who is a doctor studying neurofibromatosis. Generation after generation, people in her husband's family have been affected with hearing loss, headaches, and loss of balance when in the water. The granddaughter, after having her father's brain autopsied, figured out what the condition was. As the story goes on I learned about the caste system in India, the treatment of lepers in the society, that the Japanese once bombed India from the sky, and the corruption of the police. This was a lovely story about a large family. The story was well written. The descriptions of the food made me hungry.