Watershed - by Percival Everett (Paperback)

About the Book

"While holidaying in Colorado, a black engineer is drawn into a conflict between FBI agents and Indian environmentalists over toxic dumping. For Robert Hawks history is repeating itself, as a child he watched his parents defend black civil rights, now he is defending Indian rights"--

Book Synopsis

A rediscovered classic of politics, murder, and espionage by the National Book Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of James

On a windswept landscape somewhere north of Denver, Robert Hawks, a feisty and dangerously curious hydrologist, finds himself enmeshed in a fight over Native American treaty rights. What begins for Robert as a peaceful fishing interlude ends in murder and the disclosure of government secrets. Everett mines history for this one, focusing on the relationship between Native American activists and Black Panther groups who bonded over their shared enemies in the 1960s Civil Rights movement.

Watershed is an excellent example of Percival Everett's famed bitingly political narrative style.

Review Quotes

"Watershed has all the makings of a social thriller. Everett keeps the storytelling terse and intense, while at the same time broadening the scope of the book, moving into the history of US Indian treaty making and into the science behind the search for water and the pathos of reservation life. In this novel about water and the struggle for a life free of injustice, the mix doesn't just work, it flows."
--Alan Cheuse, NPR

"Precise and important, Watershed is a book about honesty, and how to live with dignity in the presence of betrayal. It is a story we need; it contains a code of action for the present and unfortunately for the near future. It is mercifully funny, as well."
--Rick Bass, author of Where the Sea Used to Be

Praise for Percival Everett:

"Percival Everett has made a career out of flouting expectations."
--Los Angeles Times

"Funny, insightful, and unpredictable . . . Everett is a master of his trade."
--Time Out Chicago

"Everett's talent is multifaceted, sparked by a satiric brilliance that could place him alongside Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison."
--Publishers Weekly

"Everett's books are unfailingly intelligent and funny, formally bold and intellectually ambitious."
--LA Weekly

About the Author

Percival Everett is the author of over 30 books since his debut, Suder, was released in 1983. His modern classics include I Am Not Sidney Poitier, So Much Blue, Glyph, and The Trees. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches at University of Southern California. Everett was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020 with his novel Telephone. He received the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Awards, the 2023 PEN America Award for Dr. No, and the 2024 National Book Award and 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for James.