I’m happy to share this excerpt from MAGDALENA, a new novel by Candi Sary. The excerpt and images are courtesy of Regal Publishing House.
“Magdalena once told me she knew how to cure sadness. She read on that little phone of hers that we all need fifteen minutes of sun every day and without it, depression could set in. Those of us here on the peninsula barely get fifteen minutes a week. The fog comes in over the cliffs in the morning, creeping through town, shrouding all neighborhoods with a thick graveyard effect. We don’t have an actual graveyard, but the landslide all those years ago took enough lives and left enough ghosts behind to bring on that kind of fog. If it does lift around midmorning, a heavy cloud cover still stays most of the day, keeping things gray. I’d always thought my sadness came from the unfortunate things that happened in my life, but according to Magdalena, my gloom might simply be a lack of vitamin D.”
Author Candi Sary
“From the day she got the phone, she stared into it constantly, seeking answers to all of her questions and even finding new questions she would have never thought of on her own. She fed on its information like meat.
“’Mushrooms,’” Magdalena said. ‘We need to eat mushrooms.’ The girl was my only visitor. When she spoke, I hung onto her every word. ‘If we eat enough of them, we’ll get the vitamin D we’re missing from the sun.’
I didn’t question her. For weeks, I based all my meals around mushrooms. I made mushroom casseroles, salads, risotto, soups, but I’m not sure it changed me. I’m not sure it changed her. How many mushrooms would it take to replace the sun? I wish I could ask the girl, but she’s gone. Three weeks ago, I lost her for good.
I pull up my sleeves and roll up my pants. My arms and legs are so pale in this light. They look like white maps with long blue roads leading to nowhere. The lighting in my house is soft enough to disguise my pallor, but here in the rest home, the deficiency is glaring. I quickly lower my sleeves and pants again.
‘Focus, Dottie.’ My command is quiet.
“I swallow down one of the tiny white pills and sit up straight in my chair. Pen in hand, I look around the dismal room I currently share with Mario. It is a holding cell for the dying. We aren’t dying like the old people in this nursing home. But our town is small. They had nowhere else to put my husband after the accident a decade ago. And they had nowhere else to put me after the devastating incident at my house last week. So now we live together again in room eleven with the beige walls, the brown and yellow floral comforters on our beds, and the slim, dark wood secretary desk beside the bathroom door. The old desk is where I currently sit as I tap my pen on the blank page, trying to gather my thoughts.”
Author Reginald Gibbons, courtesy of JackLeg Press
Reginald Gibbons is the author of eleven books of poetry, including CREATURES OF A DAY, a finalist for the National Book Award. His new novel, on sale Aug. 1, 2023, SWEETBITTER, won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. I’m pleased to share an excerpt; thanks to his publisher, JackLeg Press, for allowing me to post this prologue, book cover and author photo.
“This is an adventure story and a romance, but in Gibbons’ hands, it’s that and much more. Exquisitely rendered and deeply felt, this is as astute and absorbing as fiction gets.” — Booklist
PROLOGUE “Many generations ago Aba, the great spirit above, created many men, all Chahtah, who spoke the language of the Chahtah, and under- stood one another. They came from the heart of the earth and were made of clay, and before them no men had ever lived.
“One day they all gathered and looking upward wondered what the blue of the sky and the white of the clouds were made of. They determined to try to reach the sky by building a great mound. They piled up rocks to build a mound that would reach the sky but at night the wind blew from above so strongly that the rocks fell down. The second day, too, they worked, building the mound but again that night the wind came while they slept and it pushed down their work. On the third day they began yet again. But that night the wind blew so hard it hurled the rocks of the mound down upon the builders themselves.
They were not killed, but when daylight came and they crawled out from beneath the rocks that had fallen on them and they began to talk to one another, they discovered that they could no longer understand each other. They spoke many languages instead of one. Some of them spoke the original language, the Chahtah language. Others, who no longer spoke this language, began to fight with those who did. Finally they separated. The Chahtah remained, the original people, and lived near nanih waya, the mound they had not been able to complete. And the others went north and east and west and encountered more tribes.”
“In this way or some other, all the peoples of the earth were created, each from some substance and thus of different appearance, and at times struggling against each other. This is what the Chahtah told to a white missionary. But this was only a little of what the Chahtah knew. It was not for that man to know everything. And then he wrote mistaken things about them.”
Occasionally, publishers send me complimentary copies of books to review, or I’m approved for a title I’ve requested on Netgalley.com, like Woolly:The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History’s Most Iconic Extinct Creatures (Simon and Schuster). I’ve got to admit: I thought this was a novel after I read the first few pages. Author Ben Mezrich is a really engaging storyteller, and this non-fiction book has a Jurassic Park quality that might make you think it’s all made up. But surprisingly, it’s not, and the way Mezrich writes about real-life scientists and their research work makes for a terrific read. Highly recommended, even if you’re not a woolly mammoth fan.
In author Samantha Mabry’s debut novel, A Fierce and Subtle Poison, seventeen-year-old Lucas is drawn irresistibly to a mysterious house, said to be cursed, that sits at the end of a street in Old San Juan. Locals scribble their wishes on notes and toss them into the courtyard, which is filled with poisonous plants, and it’s rumored that a girl with green skin and hair like grass lives behind its walls.
While Lucas spends the summer with his father, a hotel developer, idling away his time and partying with friends, several girls from town go missing. One of them is pretty Marisol, whom he’s been seeing.
As Lucas starts to look for answers to the disappearances, he meets Isabel Ford, who lives in the cursed house. Isabel’s touch, he discovers, is poisonous. Worse, when Marisol’s body washes up on the shore, and her little sister also vanishes, Lucas becomes a suspect in the crimes.
Isabel’s poison affects Lucas, but it’s also slowly killing her, so the two join forces to find a way to end the curse.
Her book, Mabry says, was inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” She re-told the story, adding elements of magical realism like those used by Latino author Isabel Allende, and moved the tale to Puerto Rico. The result is a haunting novel that’s so rich with atmosphere, the reader can feel the humid, tropical air, and the cold sting of the sea that took Marisol’s life—and may have taken her sister’s.
The book is filled with romance and suspense, sacrifice and longing, and myth and mystery. Eventually, Lucas becomes the keeper of the written wishes, even as he spins a wish of his own. When the book ends, some readers will still feel a need for closure, but Mabry has crafted a haunting, exciting novel – with a stunningly beautiful cover – that will resonate with readers.
(Jacket image courtesy of Algonquin Young Readers)
I don’t like to post reviews for books that I’m not crazy about, especially when the book was a free copy from the publisher.
That’s the case with In Wilderness, a novel I received from a LibraryThing giveaway. While author Diane Thomas’ book is extremely well-written, suspenseful, and even lyrical, with finely-drawn, heartfelt characters–I must confess, the subject matter is just not for me.
Set in 1966, In Wilderness is the story of Katherine, a successful, 30-something businesswoman who loses both her baby and her health after she’s exposed to an environmental poison. Soon her husband abandons her, and when her doctors tell her she’ll die within months, she leaves work and home behind, and retreats to an isolated cabin in the Appalachian Mountains, where she intends to live out her remaining days alone.
But fate has a different plan. She encounters Danny, a twenty-year-old Vietnam veteran who’s living off the land and suffering from PTSD. While I don’t want to spoil the story, as it unfolds, we realize that these two terribly damaged people are helping each other while surrounded by the healing powers of nature.
But if that description makes this sound like a lighthearted read–well, it isn’t. I shouldn’t even use the word “healing,” because this is no fairy tale, dark woods notwithstanding, and neither character experiences anything like true redemption.
I found this book disturbing, primarily because Katherine takes so much abusive treatment from Danny (although he’s kind and attentive at times, he’s also violent, dangerous and unpredictable). At one point, I couldn’t understand why Katherine didn’t head back to civilization for help (by then, she has a compelling reason to get away from him).
Other critics have said this book testifies to the healing powers of nature, too. But in the end, I think “therapeutic” might be a better word to use. That’s because while the natural world comforts these characters, it doesn’t or can’t restore them, either to the people they used to be, or to society at large. While these two broken, sorrow-filled people find some balm in the wilderness, I was left feeling sad and disturbed.
This isn’t to say this isn’t a worthy book. Most critics have given it high praise, calling it “gripping,” “powerful,” “haunting” and “harsh and beautiful.” It’s just too dark for me.
