"ROOTS IN WATER is a series of twelve short plays, ranging from five to fifteen minutes in length. Some have already been staged at a small theater in Woodstock, but the new radio production is the first time they have been performed as a whole. Richard calls the plays 'a fragmented portrait of a generation' --his generation, the 'baby boom' children of the 1950s who came to adulthood in post-Vietnam America. All the characters are American, though not all the plays take place in the U S A. The drama spans the years 1976 to 1988 and the plays were written over the past eight years. Stylistically different--some are funny, some satirical, some moving--they focus on a disparate set of characters including a Vietnam pilot, former anti-war campaigners, teachers, politicians, and lawyers. Nelson sees the series as being 'like a volume of collected stories.'"
Radio Times
"A tapestry of American society."
Sheridan Morley, The Sunday Telegraph
"Something of the spareness and the ability to set up slow-burning trains for thought which mark out Raymond Carver's short stories."
Robert Hanks, The Independent