Water Music is the first novel by T. C. Boyle, published in 1981. It is a semifictional historical fiction adventure set in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Plot

The novel follows the parallel adventures and intertwining fates of its protagonists. Ned Rise is a luckless and purely fictional petty criminal traveling with the historically based explorer Mungo Park through various locales in Scotland and England, then on two Imperial British expeditions into Western Africa to explore the Niger River. Water Music is loosely based on historical sources, including Mungo Park's 1799 book, Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa. Its foreword admits that Boyle does not claim historical accuracy nor faithfulness to dubious contemporary accounts.

Publication