About this item
The New York Times bestselling author of Wench returns to the Civil War era to explore the next chapter of history - the trauma of the War and the end of slavery - in this powerful story of love and healing about three people who struggle to overcome the pain of the past and define their own future.The Civil War has ended, and Madge, Sadie, and Hemp have each come to Chicago in search of a new life.Born with magical hands, Madge has the power to discern others' suffering, but she cannot heal her own damaged heart. To mend herself and help those in need, she must return to Tennessee to face the women healers who rejected her as a child.Sadie can commune with the dead, but until she makes peace with her father, she, too, cannot fully engage her gift.Searching for his missing family, Hemp arrives in this northern city that shimmers with possibility.
About the Author
Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Wench. *USA Today* called the book "deeply moving" and "beautifully written." *People* called it "a devastatingly beautiful account of a cruel past." *O, The Oprah Magazine* chose it as a Top Ten Pick of the Month, and NPR named it a top 5 book club pick of 2010. Dolen's fiction has appeared in The Kenyon Review, StoryQuarterly, StorySouth, and elsewhere. In 2011, she was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for fiction. She was also awarded the First Novelist Award by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Dolen received a DC Commission on the Arts Grant for her second novel BALM. Early reviews are unanimously positive. Publishers Weekly writes "Her spare, lyrical voice is unsentimental yet compassionate." Library Journal writes "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." Dolen teaches in the Stonecoast MFA program in Maine and is a popular guest for Black History and Women's Month programs. A graduate of Harvard and a former University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA, Dolen lives in Washington, DC with her family.
