Amidst construction of a federal dam in rural Tennessee, Nathan, an
engineer hiding from his past, meets Claire, a small-town housewife
struggling to find her footing in the newly-electrified, job-hungry,
post-Depression South.
As Nathan wrestles with the burdens of a secret guilt and tangled love,
Claire struggles to balance motherhood and a newfound freedom that
awakens ambitions and a sexuality she hadn't known she possessed. The
arrival of electricity in the rural community, where prostitution and
dog-fighting are commonplace, thrusts together modern and backcountry
values. In an evocative feat of storytelling in the vein of Kent Haruf's
Plainsong, and Ron Rash's Serena, Watershed delivers a gripping
story of characters whose ambitions and yearnings threaten to overflow
the banks of their time and place. As the townspeople embark on a
biblical undertaking to harness elemental forces, Nathan and Claire are
left to wonder what their lives will look like when the lights come on.