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Yance Wyatt was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. He studied fiction at the University of Cambridge and the University of Southern California, where he has gone on to serve as a professor of writing and the director of the Writing Center. As a fiction editor with The Blue Mountain Review, he seeks to acquire the best new stories from the South. His own stories have appeared in dozens of nationally circulated literary journals and received several Pushcart Prize nominations. His first novel, The Watersmith, is a Southern Book Prize nominee and the Southern Literary Review’s “Read of the Month” for September 2026. Visit him @yancewyatt or www.yancewyatt.com.
Reviewed by Dylan Insch for Readers' Favorite
Yance Wyatt’s The Watersmith centers on Jack Calloway, a handyman trying to stay sober while navigating one family heartbreak after another in the Tennessee Valley. He finds an old moonshine still his grandfather hid behind a lone cabin, and he and his rebellious teen son, JJ, try to get it working again. But things go terribly wrong—a fire leaves Jack’s wife, Jolene, badly burned and unable to see, hear, or speak. Consumed by guilt, Jack sends his son away and accidentally finds out that making floral essential oils helps him reconnect with Jolene by sparking her memories through scent. Ten years later, after another tragedy, Jack teams up with an undertaker for a highly unusual, controversial business called Watersmith Fragrances. This enterprise specializes in turning human remains into memorial perfumes. Can this broken father ever fix his mistakes and save what’s left of his family?
The Watersmith by Yance Wyatt stands out as a Southern novel that connects raw human emotion with a vivid setting. Wyatt’s writing has a beautiful, poetic flow that brings the rural backdrop and the Calloway family’s deep pain to life. Jack is a fantastic, deeply flawed character, and watching him work through his twelve-step recovery program feels incredibly real. I loved how the book uses the water cycle as a theme to transform a tragic story into a beautiful look at memory and nature. Even when the timeline changes, the storyline never slows down, keeping you hooked as the town begins reacting to this bizarre perfume business. The river setting wraps around you like a blanket, making you feel the heavy mist of the watershed. I highly recommend this book if you want a story with complex people and a whole lot of heart. Very highly recommended.
