The Spell of a Magic Garden

Garden Spells

Sarah Addison Allen

(Bantam Trade Paperback edition, 2008)

 

 The Waverleys are an “odd” family—different from others.  They grow plants in their yard that have special properties.   Claire Waverley knows how to cook with the herbs and flowers grown in her yard (as did her grandmother before her)—how to combine the plants to produce certain feelings and behaviors.  Claire is a sought-after caterer who lives alone, content to cook for others and tend her garden. 

 

At least Claire is content until nights when the sliver of a moon smiles down provocatively, “the way pretty women on vintage billboards used to smile as they sold cigarettes and limeade.”  Because Claire dreams of her childhood on the smiley moon nights, she stays awake all night, avoiding sleep and the dreams of rootlessness, a mother who went from man to man, job to job, who stole to live and created such fear and insecurity in her daughter.  On these nights Claire would work in the garden “…so wound up that frustration singed the edge of her nightgown and she set tiny fires with her fingertips.”  

 

If people eat apples from the Waverleys’ special apple tree, the individuals will see the most significant thing that will happen to them in their lives—either positive or catastrophic events.  For this reason, the Waverleys guard this tree and immediately bury any apples that fall from the tree, to protect people from knowing a future they can’t control.  The apple tree portends things that are going to happen in the garden, throws apples at people when it gets bored and apparently has feelings of its own.

 

Claire’s existence is turned upside down when a young male art professor moves in next door, about the same time her younger sister Sydney shows up after years of absence with a young daughter, Bay, in tow.  Sydney is hiding from her ex--her daughter’s abusive and dangerous father, although she doesn’t immediately confide in Claire. 

 

Again Allen has created likable characters though they may be strange.  A favorite is Evanelle, the Waverley women’s great-aunt, who has the compulsion to give people things that they don’t know they need but soon will.  She doesn’t know why she has to give away strange items but she has done it all her life. 

 

I enjoy the way Allen weaves in magical elements that seem totally reasonable.  Art professor Tyler Hughes has "...tiny pinpricks of purple light hovering around him, like electrical snaps.”

 

Allen is adept at engaging all the reader’s senses, “…Sydney [as a child] would sit in the hallway outside the kitchen and listen to the bubble of sauce boiling, the sizzle of things in skillets, the rattle of pans, the mumble of Claire and Grandma Waverley’s voices.”

 

In describing another character, Allen paints a vivid word picture: “…her hair was blond and her boobs were big.  She drove a convertible, wore diamonds with denim, and she never missed a homecoming game.  She was so Southern that she cried tears that came straight from the Mississippi, and she always smelled faintly of cottonwood and peaches.”

 

This novel is light summertime reading on one level, but also deals with universal themes—self-discovery and learning to love and trust.  It is about coming home, literally and figuratively.  Equally important, it’s just fun to hang out awhile with author Sarah Addison Allen in the world she has created in Garden Spells.

 

 

The Sugar Queen is a Sweet Treat

The Sugar Queen

Sarah Addison Allen

(Bantam Trade Paperback, 2009)

 

 

 

I was introduced to author Sarah Addison Allen when I found this book in a box of books in my mother’s basement, put there for anyone in the family to take.  I was surprised when I later opened the book to find that I had given the book to my mother, which she duly noted along with the fact that she had read it.  I was looking for light fiction when I started to read the book, but didn’t dream I would grow to love this author and her “Southern Magical Realism.”  It goes down easy.  The veil between reality and the supernatural shifts back and forth as if blown by a summer breeze.

This book was read as part of the Once Upon a Time reading challenge.  See prior post for more information.  You will note I didn't read what I had intended to read because I got fixated on Sarah Addison Allen's books!

Josey Cirrini is controlled by her wealthy, domineering, self-centered, and bitter mother, Margaret, though Josey’s situation begins to change when she discovers a strange woman hiding in her closet.  Della Lee Baker, a beautiful woman from Josey’s hometown, has a bad reputation and a self-destructive streak, so Josey surprises herself when she decides to let Della Lee stay in her closet for a while. Della Lee is there to help Josey live a real life, instead of remaining under her mother’s domination.  Josey, in turn, helps Della Lee find closure to situations in her life.

Allen’s books are sensory treats.  She evokes scents and sights to set the tone for her books, each set in a fictitious North Carolina location.  This genre will not be for everyone, but I love her descriptions, e.g. “feathery frost on the windowpane,” the locales and the characters.  

The characters often have immutable characteristics shared by everyone in their family.  The men in the Pelham family can’t break a promise once it’s given.  Other characters are associated with specific scents and powers, e.g. Josey Cirrini, the main character, smells like peppermint. 

“[Julian] smelled of alcohol and of something else, like if you took a match to a rosebush.”  He is the charismatic evil seducer: “He was beautiful, like he’s been carefully drawn with a charcoal pencil, every line perfect, every smudge delivered.” “Julian was sitting with Chloe, surrounding them both with in a cloud of rosy-black smoke that only the women in the bar could see….Chloe was stuck in his smoke, entranced by him.  She couldn’t get out alone.”

Beside Julian, Margaret Cirrini is one of the more villainous characters but eventually the reader develops some empathy for her, and she becomes a more sympathetic character.  Rawley Pelham, the local taxi company owner, has a secret that binds him to the Cirrini family.  Adam Boswell, the Carrini’s mail carrier and the object of Josey’s unrequited love, has his own hidden past.  Café owner Chloe Finley and her estranged boyfriend Jake Yardley are torn apart by a betrayal and a secret.  Every character has unrealized hopes and dreams and secrets--secrets that must be disclosed before individuals can achieve happiness.   

Chloe has a strange relationship with books.  They appear unbidden to her and always have a message for her if she would heed them.  When Chloe seeks to buy a house, the homeowner says:

Books can be possessive, can’t they?  You’re walking around in a bookstore and a certain one will jump out at you, like it had moved there on its own, just to get your attention.  Sometimes what’s inside will change will life, but sometimes you don’t even have to read it.  Sometimes it’s a comfort just to have a book around.  Many of these books [in this library] haven’t even had their spines cracked.  ‘Why do you books you don’t even read?’ our daughter asks us.  That’s like asking someone who lives alone why they bought a cat.  For company, of course….

 I would love this book, if for no other reason than this passage!

While each of Sarah Addison Allen’s books contains dark forces that threaten the well-being of the characters, these are dispelled by the end of the novel.  Remember, this is “magical realism.”

 

 

Once Again, The Once Upon a Time Challenge

 

 

I was new to blogging when I first participated in the Once Upon a Time Challenge, sponsored by Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings.  Now this reading challenge is in its eighth year, and I think I'll try it again.  From March 21 until June 21, readers who are on The Journey, my proposed level of participation, agree to read one book from four broad categories: Fairy Tale, Folklore, Fantasy and Mythology.  There are many more ambitious options in this challenge, so go to Carl's popular blog to view all the choices, as well as the current participants.

 

The added challenge for me is I want to read books selected from my own library--books I own but have never read.  This was one of the most enjoyable parts the last time I took the challenge--taking time to read books that have languished on my library shelves, for years in some instances.  It's the "so many books, so little time" excuse.  Plus, the "I have a problem when it comes to buying books" excuse. 

 

My messy library

I'm still putting together my modest book list, but I plan to start with a book I discovered on my library shelves earlier this evening (before I ever thought about participating in the challenge)--Madeleine L'Engle's An Acceptable Time (fantasy).