Rainwater by Sandra Brown

Sandra Brown already has quite a pedigree, as the writer of nearly two dozen thrillers, several of them New York Times bestsellers.

With Rainwater she is attempting something very different from her standard yarn. This occurs with some regularity among writers who are very well-established and successful in one specific genre (the John Grishams and Stephen Kings): burning away in the brain is an idea for another story entirely, and one which may not appeal to their existing fan base.

Brown writes in the preface to Rainwater that she wrote this on the sly – she was working on two other contracted books at the time, and none of her business associates were aware of this little project, so she submitted the finished manuscript with trepidation, conscious of its difference to her previous work and uncertain about how it would be received.

She needn’t have feared. Rainwater is a very special story, an addictive tale that is beautifully constructed and above all very readable. The story of what happens to a lonely single mother when a mysterious new lodger arrives at her boarding house in Depression-era Texas, I drank it up in two evenings, and I suspect even the most time-poor would be reluctant to stretch out their reading much further than that – the characterization and plot are so strong that you simply must find out the fates of the people that sneak into your heart.

At the novel’s opening, Ella Barron’s lodgers are two elderly spinster sisters and a travelling salesman. Ella has an autistic young son, Solly, but with autism not yet identified as a medical condition, Solly is generally viewed as the town idiot. Ella lives with the fear that if he behaves strangely in public, he may be taken from her and placed in one of the many nightmarish facilities for the mentally ill.

She has an orderly, proscribed, regimented life until one day the local doctor introduces a young man, Mr Rainwater, who is looking to board in one of her rooms. Ella, who for her own safety has become highly attuned to the hidden and unspoken, knows something is up, and learns that Mr Rainwater is terminally ill with only months to live.

It’s the perfect set-up for a poignant love story, and Brown doesn’t disappoint – she draws out the tension beautifully and steers clear of the melodrama and sentimentality that can turn a strong premise into soupy treacle.

One of my favourite elements was Sandra Brown’s exploration of the history of this area, particularly in relation to a government-run cattle programme designed to boost the dire provincial economy. For many thousands of farmers, their businesses were no longer economically viable, so the government slaughtered their stock and paid them per head of cattle (curiously, the carcasses were thrown away, to be pursued by starving townspeople and slum-dwellers). Cleverly, Brown molds this historical datum into a tense plot development relating to a local sociopath who has unfinished business with Ella.

Rainwater is a rather literary novel in terms of its austerity and its refusal to give the reader the ending they might prefer, but despite the many sadnesses in the story, I found it hopeful, uplifting and quite unlike any other recent novel. However, in it’s blending of the historical and the personal, I suspect it will strike a chord with fans of Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 smash-hit The Help. Highly recommended.

4/5 Stars: More than just another historical love story.  Click here to listen to the Easy Mix Audio Review