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  • Blackwater: The Complete Saga by Michael McDowell book cover
  • Blackwater: The Complete Saga by Michael McDowell book cover
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Blackwater: The Complete Saga

by Michael McDowell

A Southern town shaped by the river’s secrets

$41.78 USD
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AlbakiReads Editorial

A Southern town shaped by the river’s secrets

Set in Perdido, Alabama, beginning on Easter Sunday in 1919, Blackwater brings a family saga into contact with supernatural horror. Elinor Dammert arrives as a stranger, seeking a place in the town and a marriage to Oscar Caskey, heir to Perdido’s leading family. Her connection to the Perdido River, however, carries a secret rooted in local stories and rituals. The book’s scope reaches beyond Elinor’s arrival to the life of the town and the Caskey family. First published as six volumes in 1983, this edition gathers the complete saga in one volume, making its serialized structure available as a single book.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Horror readers interested in supernatural threats tied to a specific place.
  • Readers drawn to stories centered on a family and a small-town community.
  • Those interested in a saga originally published in six installments, now collected in one volume.

Themes

Family and inheritanceBelonging and secrecyFolklore and the supernaturalCommunity and place

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

Blackwater is the saga of a small town, Perdido, Alabama, and Elinor Dammert, the stranger who arrives there under mysterious circumstances on Easter Sunday, 1919. On the surface, Elinor is gracious, charming, anxious to belong in Perdido, and eager to marry Oscar Caskey, the eldest son of Perdido's first family. But her beautiful exterior hides a shocking secret. Beneath the waters of the Perdido River, she turns into something terrifying, a creature whispered about in stories that have chilled the residents of Perdido for generations. Some of those who observe her rituals in the river will never be seen again ...

Originally published as a series of six volumes in 1983, Blackwater is the crowning achievement of Michael McDowell, author of the Southern Gothic classics Cold Moon Over Babylon and The Elementals and screenwriter of Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas. This first-ever one-volume edition, with a new introduction by Shirley Jackson Award-winning author Nathan Ballingrud, marks Blackwater's first appearance in print in three decades and will allow a new generation of readers to discover this modern horror classic.

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