Books book reviews Tuck in the Catskills: The Fountain by Casey Scieszka  “The real question The Fountain asks is: What makes a life meaningful when you have infinite time and health?” By Mahvesh Murad | Published on April 29, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share In The Fountain, 27-years-young Vera returns to her home town in the Catskills, 180-odd years after she was forced to leave it with her brother and mother, before any one caught on that the three never aged. The family does not know what has made them immortal, just as they do not know why they can heal so rapidly from any injury. But Vera is certain that something in the Catskills made them what they are: A fountain of youth must be in the area, and Vera is determined to find it. She’s done with living, done with running from place to place so no one finds out she is immortal, and done with being alone. She has tried to die repeatedly, and after centuries of failed attempts, she is now certain that if she can find the source of her immortality, she can reverse her condition. How she plans to do this, or why she is so certain that this idea will work, is a mystery—much like the source of her immortality. But Vera has a plan, “to recreate whatever phenomena did this to her and, in doing so, reverse her condition. To hunt for the fountain and drink from it again. A flimsy theory perhaps. But it’s one of the least ridiculous she’s entertained over the years, and it has taken ahold of her with a conviction of its own. She needs to start somewhere. This needs to end.” At least Casey Scieszka acknowledges that this, indeed, is a flimsy theory.  Still, it is enough of a theory to get Vera back to her hometown, where we see her trying to keep to herself while using her job as a park ranger to collect water from every stream she comes across in the Catskills and drink it, hoping it will do the trick. She attempts to stay away from the locals and not form any close bonds, but the cozy-cute appeal of this particular Catskills town wears down her guard, and she finds herself becoming the godmother of her work partner’s unborn child, the personal contractor and best friend of her landlady, the hero who jumps astride a spooked horse bareback and shoots a coyote, and the romantic interest of the rugged fly fishing expert EMT Paul, who wonders how Vera got just so darned good at fishing herself. She, of course, cannot tell him she’s had literal centuries of experience. Vera is immortal, but she is still human. And so she falls in love with the town, its people, this new life.  Vera’s quest for the fountain of youth takes a bit of a back seat (in that, apparently it’s ongoing, but we aren’t paying much attention to it) as she starts to ease into the delightful little Catskills life. Until she is suddenly faced with her brother and his partner (who also happens to be an immortal from the same town and time as Vera), who have rocked up as representatives of a multimillion dollar company that is buying out real estate in the area. The Fountain of Eternal Youth LLC is hoping to identify a natural source to make a miracle drug against all sorts of disease. Of course, that natural source is the same fountain Vera is searching for.  While Vera has no science to back her flimsy theory, Lydia (the partner) has spent her life studying the science of longevity, and is certain she can isolate whatever special element the fountain has that creates immortals. She wants to use that to cure all disease—a noble cause, though complicated for obvious reasons. So while their intentions are not the same, Vera, her brother Eli, and Lydia agree to team up to locate the fountain they all need. The person who owns the LLC, Mathew, is interested in profiting off Lydia’s miracle drug, of course, which is not what any of the immortals are interested in.  Buy the Book The Fountain Casey Scieszka Buy Book The Fountain Casey Scieszka Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Vera wants to die. Lydia wants to achieve something amazing. Mathew wants to be a gazillionaire forever. Eli just wants to have a good time. We can see how they may not get along. Meanwhile they are all becoming more enmeshed with the townspeople, and when Mathew shows up, things take a turn for the worse. But that isn’t until much, much later. We’ve got a lot of small town cozy scenes to experience first.  The speculative element in the novel is that of Vera and her family’s immortality. We don’t really get any understanding of the science behind it (for all we know, it’s magic), and there is no other speculative element in the novel. The rest is small town mise en scène. There is some character development visible for Vera, as she returns to the place of her birth and finds a groove for herself. We see her letting down her guard, lean into her vulnerability and humanity, and make friends and take risks because she starts to care about the people around her. She begins to doubt her desire to die, and that’s pretty much the only real conflict there is, other than whether Lydia should even use this potential fountain of youth to cure disease and make Mathew’s corporation a gazillion dollars. The assumption that the source of immortality is a body of water is itself a little odd. Is it because of the classic mythical cliché? Because there are many water bodies in the area? Is there ancient lore in the area that we are not told about on the page? Or is it because Casey Scieszka has said in interviews that The Fountain is a “grown up version of Tuck Everlasting,” a 1975 children’s novel by Natalie Babbitt, in which a small spring of water in a forest is the source of eternal youth. The Fountain is very much like Tuck Everlasting, but told via a very romantic lens of Catskills small-town community. The writer is an urban transplant and runs an inn in the Catskills herself, and her husband has written an illustrated book about fly fishing, so it’s no surprise that both of these elements play a large part in the novel’s landscape. It’s unfortunate that many of the characters who play smaller roles in the story have voices that blend together, but since they don’t have an impact on the main thrust of the plot, it doesn’t matter. They get a little distracting, but ultimately they are just scenery.  The story is told entirely from Vera’s perspective, and while that aligns us well with her, she isn’t the most exciting of characters. She pities herself a lot, hasn’t done anything much with her immorality, and though she’s had some heartbreak and one very traumatic event that has led her back home, it is hard to tell if she has evolved at all over the last two centuries. Is this why, then, that she is the one who wants to die, and not the others? In over 200 years, Vera has not found her purpose—that is, until she decided it was time to die. The real question The Fountain asks is: What makes a life meaningful when you have infinite time and health? Of course there isn’t a correct answer to this question at all—not when each human being’s experience of everything is so incredibly unique.   Immortality can mean that you do incredible world changing things, or at least help propel them along. It can mean you constantly do small acts that help people even if you aren’t noticed. It can mean you just drift about, living many lives that leave no impact so your immortality can go unnoticed. Vera has done the latter. But once she allows herself to get comfortable, starts caring about the locals, makes friends and gets caught up in real mortal lives around her, she becomes part of a community in her home again, centuries after running away. It is complicated, but then as she thinks, “who could ever be prepared for anything as stupefying as infinity?” The Fountain is a very readable novel, with some interesting things to say, albeit without enough interesting characters to say them.  The Fountain is published by Harper. The post Tuck in the Catskills: <i>The Fountain</i> by Casey Scieszka  appeared first on Reactor.