Jake Woods is a man for whom the symmetry of a city park is foreign. There’s few wild places left, and he needs them like oxygen. Twice nearly destroyed by accidents in the wilds, he sets a course back to them; not to make peace with the world, but to heal in its flaws, where he chances, one last time, the challenge and magic of life. Written in plain but beautiful prose, at times lyrical and laconic, The Water Thief peels back layer upon layer of raw emotion, down to the bone that sustains us all. Finalist for the Ariadne Prize and short-listed for Stanford’s William Saroyan International Prize.

“It left me reeling and hardly able to catch my breath.”
—Leslee Breene

“Strongly recommended reading as a touching and memorable story about the transcendental power of forgiveness over spiritual despair.”
—Midwest Book Review

“This is prose of a considerable allusive power which tackles the age old questions of love, fidelity, loyalty, obsession, guilt, forgiveness, battling of ferocious elements, and final acceptance . . . This is a mesmerizingly swift and eventful journey into th heart of darkness which must reach a bitter-sweet conclusion . . . This is a powerful, gut gripping novel. Once you begin to read, you cannot put the novel down, nor do you want to do so.”
—Joyce Metzger

“Baldwin’s tellings are uncut potions brewed from the most indestructible of elements: water, tendon, starlight, fire, and sunrise.”
—Merrill Gilfillan

“The Water Thief is a brilliant evocation of the power of loss. In this brief yet epic tale, Baldwin joins that select circle of American writers—think Jim Harrison, Russell Banks, Rick Bass—who have discovered the true poetry of modern American in the realistic novel of the American backcountry. This book gazes deeply into the abyss and scarcely blinks, a dark ride over and through the reaches of wilderness. A rare novel that matters; it seems ancient and grand and touched by myth.”
—Greg Rawlings

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