Deb Spera

As soon as I started living with the expectation of having a friend by my side through old age, I found her dead on the kitchen floor. Now the whole world is upside down in thought and action, and my days are filled with worry about what I can’t see that’s waitin’ around the corner.

It is what is waiting around the corner for three women living in 1924 South Carolina that makes up the bulk of this captivating debut novel by Deb Spera. What a debut it is! Anne is a wealthy woman, mistress of a large house with servants and owner of a local business on the verge of becoming something more. Retta is a black woman, a descendant of the slaves who once served at this house, and herself still a part of the fabric of its existence, but also an independent minded and strong woman, testing the limits of the world she now inhabits. And finally, there is Gertrude, a white woman living in poverty with her shiftless husband and four daughters--a woman given away in marriage to a cruel man, struggling to find a way out and into a life that might offer more than starvation and fear.

It being 1924, and there being a black woman involved, there is a necessary picture of the racial divide. Retta is, without doubt, my favorite character in the story, exhibiting a strength that draws others to her, particularly the white people who need both her physical and spiritual help. The mindset she is battling against is summed up beautifully in the words of her mother:

She’d say, “We all born the same, we all die the same, ain’t no difference in that truth. But when you a Negro, you got to watch your mouth. What’s said can’t be unsaid, what’s done can’t be undone and what white folk do, don’t concern you. We’re put here on this earth to work, that’s all. If your daddy and brothers would have been happy enough with that fact, they’d still be here today.

That Retta chooses to ignore that advice and become involved in the lives of the white people around her is both remarkable and heroic.

This is a story of women, Some are pitted against the men who control their worlds, and one thing clearly seen is that this is a man’s world and even the most powerful women have very little power outside their own selves.

Men can’t bear what women must. They jump to cry insanity as cause for a woman’s unhappiness; the utterance of the unutterable must be dementia. It’s just too much to consider otherwise.

What happens to these women, as they thread through each other’s lives, is pure magic. I learned to respect them all before the end of the book, and root for their determination not to give in to the harshness of the lives they led. There is so much more I want to say, but to do so would give away plot, and that is not my purpose.

Don’t miss this one!… (meer)

This is a beautifully written story of three women from different backgrounds and how their lives intertwine. I loved the way the stories were woven into one another, seamlessly going along the timeline from one woman to the next.

The characters were raw, believable, and very unique one to another. As I read through I truly felt I was getting to know them and growing as they faced their individual challenges. And there are a lot of challenges facing these women. Highlights the importance of drawing together, forgiveness and acceptance across race, age, religion and other differences.

I laughed, I cried, I smiled but mostly I felt while reading this book. I was right alongside those women, hoping and fighting with then. This will definitely stay with me for a while. Highly recommended!… (meer)