Balm

May 4, 2015
The elegantly crafted second novel from Perkins-Valdez (after Wench) captures the fierce energy, diversity, and suffering of Civil Warâera Chicago. At its heart are three strangersâtwo black, one whiteâwhose lives intersect after each arrives in their new hometown. Expecting to join her new husband in Chicago, Sadie Walker discovers that his sudden death has left her a wealthy widow. Her mourning is briefâher father arranged the unwelcome marriageâbut then the voice of a recently slain Union soldier invades her mind. She uses his intercession to offer séances for the bereaved, hiring a freed black woman named Madge as a servant. Descended from a line of skilled female herbalists, Madge is a gifted healer raised by an unloving mother and aunts. At one of Sadie's séances she meets Hemp Harrison, a freed slave seeking his wife, Annie, who was sold to another owner before abolition. Though Madge and Hemp share a powerful attraction, Annie's unknown fate and the emotional scars from Madge's Tennessee childhood keep them apart. Perkins-Valdez moves gracefully among her three protagonists' viewpoints as they struggle to claim their authentic gifts and free themselves of the pain of their pasts. Her spare, lyrical voice is unsentimental yet compassionate, echoing Madge's belief that "in a land so devastated by death, the best healing balm is hope."

April 15, 2015

When Madge, a freeborn black woman from Tennessee skilled in the art of making healing ointments, teas, and balms from herbs and bark, takes a maid's position with Sadie, an unhappy, white widow in Chicago who speaks with the dead, both women are hesitant to reveal their secrets, remembering past hurts. The two main male characters are equally troubled. Sadie's doctor friend, Michael, is racked with guilt over not enlisting during the Civil War, and Hemp, a former slave, has to fight off his feelings of attraction to Madge while he searches for his wife, who was sold off before the war. In their individual ways, they are all walking wounded--in need of spiritual soothing. The author deftly weaves her characters' longings with the gritty realities of American life after war's devastations. VERDICT No sophomore slump is in evidence here. Readers who were captivated by Perkins-Valdez's first novel, Wench, will be intrigued by the post-Civil War lives of three Southern transplants to Chicago. [See Prepub Alert, 11/10/14.]--Laurie Cavanaugh, Holmes P.L., Halifax, MA

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