Michael McDowell's Blackwater

the long version

On the crest of the worst flood that Perdido, Alabama has ever seen, the mysterious Elinor Dammart is rescued from the topmost room of a flooded hotel. Soon Elinor marries her way into the powerful Caskey family, where she brings them wealth and prosperity...but also animosity and death. Blackwater tells the story of fifty years of the Caskey dynasty, and how the Perdido River seems to run eerily through the family's fate.