Balm

The Civil War has ended, and three very different people make their way to the booming prairie city of Chicago in hopes of finding a better life. Sadie has arrived from York, Pennsylvania, to join the much older husband chosen by her father, only to find Samuel's body in the parlor, one of the victims of a train derailment. For Sadie, his death brings freedom: she didn't love him, is happy to leave the parent who would marry her off for money to save his book-binding business, and has become heir to a sizable fortune. But what she lacks is a purpose--until she begins to hear a voice. Not just any voice, but that of James Heil, a young man who was killed in the war. James is able to put Sadie in touch with others who have crossed over, show more and with the help of his brother, a doctor, she establishes herself as a successful medium.

Madge, a free black woman from Tennessee, was raised by her mother and aunts to be a healer, but life there is hard (and so are the sisters), so she decides to try her luck in the city. Madge not only has herbal knowledge but a healing touch. After a chance encounter, she is hired as a housemaid by Sadie and secretly runs a medicinal business out of the kitchen. She falls in love with Hemp, a freed slave who is looking for the wife and stepdaughter that were sold in the waning days of the war. After Sadie fails to reach Annie on the other side, Madge feels sure that she is still alive and that any feelings she herself has for Hemp are doomed.

The author does a fine job of creating the environment of a burgeoning Chicago, the aftereffects of the Civil War, and the limitations of these three characters as second class citizens due to race and/or gender. The stories of Sadie, Madge, and Hemp are interesting on their own but gain greater significance as they are interwoven. Secondary characters--including Dr. Heil; Madge's family; Sadie's father, her German cook, Olga, and her kindly black driver, Richard; the minister who take in Hemp; and more--are all individualized and believable. Overall, a very rewarding historical novel. show less

After the conclusion of the Civil War, many people found themselves displaced to strange cities and stranger ways of life. This book focuses on a handful of such people whose paths cross in the bustling city of Chicago. One is a rich widow who finds herself the medium for departed souls. One is a healer from the hills of Kentucky who has struck out from her ancestral home to forge a new life. One is a displaced former slave who is looking for his wife, having been separated from her right before the war broke out.

These three people will find themselves bound together by the nature of their shared grief. Each has lost someone, each is alone in a strange city, and each must decide what manner of new life they will create for themselves.

A show more haunting and emotionally complex novel about grief and the inevitability of change. show less

An odd combination of magical realism, historic fiction, and the paranormal, there was almost too much here for me. Any one of them would have been great for the story, and allowed the author to expand and develop that one trait and character. However, all three main characters with such strong storylines left me feeling that none of them was drawn as fully as they could have been. I admit that I have not read Wench, but I think the two are standalone stories. My suggestion to Perkins-Valdez would have been to write three books, each telling the in-depth story of one character's perspective, while introducing the others as part of the periphery. That would have been a much more satisfying read.

While I think it could have been better, I show more was able to read this in one day, beside the pool, under the Alabama sun. With that, it's a recommended light read. show less