The Water Knife

“Sweat was a body’s history, compressed into jewels, beaded on the brow, staining shirts with salt. It told you everything about how a person had ended up in the right place at the wrong time, and whether they would survive another day.” 

At the beginning of the novel, the image of sweat underscores the importance of water to people and to the book. Essentially, a person’s history is also a history of dependence on access to water. Without water, there is no sweat.

“‘If I could put my finger on the moment we genuinely fucked ourselves, it was the moment we decided that data was something you could use words like believe or disbelieve around.’” 

Jamie is disgusted with people’s refusal to accept facts as the truth. He blames their reluctance to accept data about the water crisis in the west as the cause of the situation they find themselves in now. 

“In Papa’s head, things looked one way, but in Maria’s experience they were nothing the same. He kept saying that this was America and America was all about freedom and doing what you wanted, but the crumbling America that they drove across, where Texans were strung up on New Mexico fences as warnings, most definitely wasn’t the America he kept inside his head.” 

Maria doesn’t see the same America her father saw. The America that she exists in is one where each state is fighting one another for the few precious resources left. Maria blames her father for being naïve and idealistic. She wants to avoid her father’s mistakes and see things for what they really are.