BITTER WATER OPERA by Nicolette Polek

Adrift in her unfulfilling life, Gia writes to a woman she greatly admires: Marta Beckett. A peculiar footnote to recent American history, Beckett, a retired ballerina, built a grand opera house in Death Valley - complete with painted fake audience - before dying in 2017. If sending her a letter seems foolishly sweet, it pays unlikely dividends. Beckett’s ghost shows up shortly after at Gia’s door. For a week Gia tends to the old woman’s needs, observing her ways and make sense of her appearance. Inspired by what she sees, she sets off on a pilgrimage of selfhood; first to a cottage in the country and then to find the opera house. What she finds astounds and discomforts her.

Ethereal and strange, Bitter Water Opera is a charmingly contemplative reflection on loneliness, purpose, art and smalltime redemptions. Gia’s quest is eminently relatable, and I found myself questioning my own path. There are religious undertones - it is unsurprising to learn that Polek has a degree in divinity - but they manifest mostly in the near-hymnal prose that, honestly, is just a pleasure to read. A quiet, lyrical and downright beautiful book for our deafening times.

Bitter Water Opera by Nicolette Polek
Graywolf Press, 2024
122 pages