Marylee MacDonald

In Bodies of Water, my latest short story collection, water becomes the setting for decisions that cannot be postponed. These stories ask what happens when grief, love, and responsibility meet at the same shoreline.

Water gathers in every story here, but it never means just one thing. It is a creek carrying the residue of a city, a river glimpsed at dawn, a harbor holding old departures, an estuary crowded with celebration, and a reservoir shrunken by drought. Around each one, Marylee MacDonald places people facing the moment when the life they know can no longer remain unchanged.

Across fourteen linked-by-theme stories, readers meet characters whose turning points are quiet but consequential: a blind man learning to trust the world again, a widow bargaining with an Amish carpenter, a craftsman waiting decades for the return of what was stolen, and a woman following a stranger through Vancouver’s midnight streets until she discovers a way to release the past.

For readers drawn to the emotional precision of Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge and the vivid, unsentimental humanity of Lucia Berlin’s A Manual for Cleaning Women, Bodies of Water offers a bittersweet passage through grief, belonging, and the choices that reshape our lives.

Learn more here: www.linktr.ee/maryleemacdonald

     I do not want to write this post and tell you what the notaries found in Noël's apartment. At the time of his death he lived at 57 rue Menilmontant. His body had been taken away, and the proprietor made mention of the rent he had lost while waiting for the notaries to appear.  Read More 

My novel's hero, "le petit Noël," as the astronomer Chappe called Noël in his handwritten diary, may have been a person of "profound short stature." The phrase, "the little Noël," comes up again and again. I first thought it referred to Noël's age. He was the youngest member of the expedition.  Read More 

Through a Google search, I learned that Noël died on January 17, 1834. Just as a reminder, he was born July 25, 1752, and given that his life could not have been easy, he lived a very long time. With a little more searching, I found his address at the time of his death, and in fact,  Read More 

On the 11th of Fructidor, year 8 of the Revolution, Noël came before the Academy of Science and demanded a hearing for a unique invention--the secret of shaving oneself without a razor. Money was involved, big money for anyone who could come up with an invention that would be useful and help revive the  Read More 

Noël studied with King Louis XV's drawing master, Nicolas Charles de Silvestre, and with his son, Jacques Augustin. On Sundays the archives shut down, so I went out to Etampes and had a wonderful lunch on the terrace with the great grandson of Jacques Augustin.
The first artist in the Silvestre family, Israel Silvestre, escaped religious persecution in Scotland and moved to the  Read More 

Besides doing research for my novel, I've had a great time learning the ins and outs of the French archival system. First off, each archive has its own, unique collection. Before asking to look at old documents, you must register yourself and obtain your reading card. Those reading cards allow you to enter collections that are closed to the general public, and they're well worth the users fees you'll need to pay to acquire one. Before I came over here, I tried to get a general idea of what each collection contained. I didn't expect to find original art at the Archives nationales, but I wanted a paper trail of the young artist.  Read More 

What a magnificent library I stumbled into here in the Ecole des Beaux Arts, once housed in the Louvre, where artists, goldsmiths, and jewelers lived rent free, thanks to the regard the French have always had for art. Now, the Ecole occupies a beautiful old hotel a couple of blocks from the Cafe  Read More 

Shortly before I left for this trip, I made an earthshaking discovery about Alexandre-Jean Noël. That wasn't his real name! In a document in the Spanish Archives, I found a letter listing all the people in the French party heading off to Baja, and the young artist's name was Jean Noël Turelure. Read More 

I knew a lot about the artist Alexandre-Jean Noël, but still had lots of questions. I dragged my suitcase up to the third floor apartment and then headed over to the National Archives, a few blocks away. The Archives' reading room doesn't open on Sundays, but I thought I'd check out the building. Turned out, there was a special event going on! An exhibit of documents in the Archives, many of which were documents recorded by French notaries.
     Portraits and personal stories about these scribes of the law fascinated me, and I learned that when property traded hands, a court told a debtor to pay, or a person died, a notary made a record of that event for posterity. If you died without a will, a notary would come and place a value on your property. Read More