Watertower Girl

Chateau d'eau et Empire State water tower girl novel

Watertower Girl is an allegorical romance of a teenager runs away from home after discovering her father headed the East Germany secret police and after a series of harrowing experiences in Europe and especially in New York, sets up house above the city, in a dry water tower. Her presence above the city evokes the aspiration of each of us to succeed, feel elevated, respected or superior and how it undoes us all, ignoring love, friendship, the value of life and consciousness itself. The vertical advantage which she seeks to rise above her past and the people she believes oppress her, her rooftop or water tower perch, allows Anja to meditate on all of New York, its architecture, its vast color and its vanity, and the failure of popular culture to replace the aspirations of democracy and equality.