Black Water by Carol Oates - This book kept me “on the edge of my seat”

 Black Water by Carol Oates

This book kept me “on the edge of my seat”

This book is not a thriller but I would say that it reads like one.
Being rather short, it can be finished in about two hours and I would say that, although not action packed, it keeps you on the edge of the seat.
In a manner of speaking, because I have read about 95% of it in the Jacuzzi at the World Class spa.
Which is an interesting coincidence for Black Water deals with …water, what else and a muddy, dirty, black one at that.
From the start we know that a serious accident has taken place and a man and a young woman are trapped inside a car.
So there is no need for a spoiler alert, since we are from the beginning in about the same place as near the end.
I am writing these notes, without the final 5% which would anyway be irrelevant for here, since I am not about to let you in on what happens.
The funny or weird thing is that I had a sensation that I know about this and how it will end for a good part of the book.
I tried to engage Blonde, by the same author, only to find that it has a thousand pages or so, and it is based on the life of Marylyn Monroe.
So when the plot of Black Water involved a senator and an accident with a girl I had the feeling I knew about this.
There was a politician, who I felt must be one of the Kennedy brothers who traveled with a woman and they had an accident.
So I thought the girl dies in the end, but after a while I lost the conviction, for this accident appears to take place more recently.
The other incident happened a long time ago and in the end, this is still fiction and a major part is anyway speculation.
Like the scenes with the girl trapped in the car, where she is struggling, thinking in flashbacks about the past.
This is the author imagining with extraordinary talent and vision what could be in the mind of a person hostage in such an outrageous situation.
The characters are complex, so we cannot simply point to The Senator and say- there is you villain, the monster.
He is much older and can be viewed as guilty, for he has experience and should know better than to drink and drive.
As for his exit from the car, that can be understood, if not forgiven, as the impulse of a moment, when panic and the conservation instinct make people do things that can be automatic, impulsive and it is hard to judge them- I guess.
We do not know the name of the man and he is only referred to as The Senator, but the main character is Kelly Kelleher, who may have been predestined to meet this fate, if you believe in such things.
After all, before she even met the politician, she had a study about him and knew so much about the senator and appreciated a number of his initiatives.
They meet at a friend’s house near the ocean and in just a few hours a conservative reader would say that he manages to seduce her.
He drives aggressively, as they are bound for the mainland together, and on a back, shorter road the car skids and falls into the Black Water.
This book has kept reading with virtually no pause, up to the near end.
As I complete this note, I stopped and finish the final chapter, went on the net and read that the book was indeed based on what happened to Edward Kennedy in the sixties, an incident where the girl died.
Whether that happens in this novel I would not say.

It was a great read, terrifying at times

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