SOURCE: “Collision of Dreams,” in Washington Post Book World, June 7, 1993, p. D2.

In the following positive review, Benedict calls The Forms of Water an “elegiac” and “intelligent” novel.

A certain appetite for land (an appetite remarkable for its fierce, even rapacious nature) is a major constituent of the American character. It's part of our national heritage. Historically, the United States has also provided safe haven for, and been the birthplace of, any number of utopian religions, from the Shakers to the Mormons to the Seventh-Day Adventists. These seemingly antithetical currents in American life flow powerfully together in The Forms of Water. Andrea Barrett's intelligent and elegiac fourth novel.

At issue in the book is the disposition of 200 acres of undeveloped woodland at the edge of a vast man-made lake. This plot of ground is all that remained to the Auberon family when, in the '30s, their home...