Balm: A Novel
Written by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Narrated by Lisa Renee Pitts
4/5
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About this audiobook
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. But redemption cannot be possible until he is reunited with those taken from him.
In the bitter aftermath of a terrible, bloody war, as a divided nation tries to come together once again, Madge, Sadie, and Hemp will be caught up in a desperate, unexpected battle for survival in a community desperate to lay the pain of the past to rest.
Beautiful in its historical atmosphere and emotional depth, Balm is a stirring novel of love, loss, hope, and reconciliation set during one of the most critical periods in American history.
Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Wench. 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. She lives in Washington, D.C. @Dolen / dolenperkinsvaldez.com
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Reviews for Balm
169 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I muscled through this audiobook because the story was entrancing. But the awkwardly stilted speech pattern of the narrator made it hard to feel immersed in the story. Her character voices lacked distinction and it was often difficult to tell who was speaking and none of the emotion felt genuine. The novel itself was 3-4 stars, but the audiobook was only 2-3.
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- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I wish I had more stars. this is a lovely story!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This was a very Beautiful story about love and healing.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5After 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 haunting and emotionally complex novel about grief and the inevitability of change.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quiet, reflective musings of a Christian preacher near the end of his life. In 1957 in the small town of Gilead, Iowa, John Ames is writing an account of his memories for his young son. He knows he will not be around to see him grow up, so he writes his thoughts about life, love, faith, forgiveness, grace, and family history.
It is slow-paced, philosophical, and occasionally meandering. This structure is in keeping with the writing of a long letter. The thin plot concerns Jack Boughton, the son of his neighbor and best friend, who has recently returned to town for unknown reasons. Jack’s backstory, involving family secrets, is gradually revealed.
I enjoyed the contemplative and optimistic tone. I also liked the way it portrays acceptance and kindness in the place of judgment. The author writes beautiful scenes of small-town life, portraying the beauty of a simple life with simple pleasures. The writing is quite lovely throughout, such passages such as:
“The moon looks wonderful in this warm evening light, just as a candle flame looks beautiful in the light of the morning. Light within light… It seems to me to be a metaphor for the human soul, the singular light within the great general light of existence.” - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An elderly father leaves a long letter to his young son - to read long after the father has died.
The letter is long, meandering, but beautiful and wonderful at the same time. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 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, 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.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5An 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 was able to read this in one day, beside the pool, under the Alabama sun. With that, it's a recommended light read.