The Waterproof Bible [Hardcover]

Andrew Kaufman has succeeded in creating a literary classic with this one. Magic realism at its very best, The Waterproof Bible is a quirky, whimsical story dealing with the oddest mix of characters you will ever read about, who all intersect each others' lives in one way or another over the course of a few days.

You have Rebecca, an extraordinarily ordinary woman who involuntarily broadcasts her emotions onto others. When she's happy, everyone can feel her happiness, when she's sad, everyone can feel her sadness, and when she's scared, everyone can feel her fear - however, she's found a way to trap and store her emotions in personal objects and storing them at Unit 207, E.Z. Self-Storage, which left her capable of lying to people about her real feelings and hiding them from everyone, including those who actually cared. An incident with a tap left on flooded some of her boxes (premonition of the larger flood that will occur later in the book?), forcing her to throw them out and with them her emotional attachment to the people concerned with these objects.

There's Lewis, Rebecca's brother-in-law, who has just lost his wife and decided to flee the city rather than cope with the situation, but ended up meeting a woman who claims to be God.

Then there's Aby, a frog humanoid who left the water in search of her estranged mother on dry land. One important fact about Aby is that she's an Aquatic - Aquatics are those who believe and follow the Aquaticism religion - (don't worry, Kaufman goes into great depth explaining the basics of the religion to us). There's also Margaret, Aby's mother and she owns (sort of) a hotel and does not want to go back to Aquaticism.

Finally, there's Stewart, Rebecca's husband, who left her three years prior and is now building a boat while he waits for his wife to make the final call.

Each one of these characters have one thing in common - they are all waiting for that one moment when lightning strikes, so their feeling of loss diminishes. Rebecca loses her emotions when her sister dies, Lewis loses his senses when his wife dies, Stewart loses his wife as their relationship dies, Margaret loses her family and home as her religion dies, and Aby loses her mother as her beliefs die. In one intersecting moment, they all meet and miracles happen.

This book, or shall I say 'bible', is full of visuals, metaphors, allegory and all other forms of imagery. It is satiric, yet biblical - at the same time it is a love story that is cliché-free. From floods, to moments of enlightenment, to a meeting with God, to blindness, to thunderstorms and saving lives, this book will take you on an exciting journey of self-discovery and awakening. You will be left bewildered by the end of it, with so much happening but very little explanation to any of it. Yet, that's the beauty of this novel, the unexplainable is what makes it so fascinating.

Call it a case study on the search for the true meaning of life, a serious discussion of God, faith, and religion, a light comic romp, or a love story. Whatever it is, it will get to you. It will make you question life, connect with these characters at some level and take a deeper look within yourself. But it will also make you sit with a smile on your face while you read it, chuckling at all the funny bits as you appreciate Kaufman's originality and wit.

My favourite line in the book was: "The only difference between a happy ending and a sad ending is where you decide the story ends."

So Kaufman writes, and so we should all believe.

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