I would like to congratulate the winners of The Healing by Jonathan Odell, June's Author in the Spotlight. I would like to thank Jon for giving away three hardcover copies and two Ebook copies of his book to Booksnob followers.
And the winners are:
Hardcover:
Carol from Texas
Nanette from Alabama
Julie from Minnesota
Ebook:
Patty from St. Paul, Minnesota
Sally from Minneapolis, Minnesota
Congratulations Ladies, Enjoy your new books!
If you didn't win a copy you can still order a copy from Amazon. The book is currently in the top 1000 books on Amazon's charts and climbing fast. Odell has created a novel that encompasses the power of healing, women
and story. Please
visit Jon at his website to check out his interview with a 92 year old
midwife whom he based The Healing on at: http://www.jon-odell.com/
It is the end of June already. June is my favorite month of the year and parting is such sweet sorrow. June, I hold fond memories of you in my heart. What a beautiful month June has been and so it is time for me to
wrap-up the month of June by
highlighting Minnesota author, Jonathan Odell.
Today is the last day to enter the contest to win a copy of The Healing. The contest ends at midnight tonight.
The contest is open Internationally and you can win an ebook or a hardcover copy. Good Luck and as always
thanks for following Booksnob!
Please check out my book review of The Healing Odell has
created a cast memorable characters, a realistic look at a Mississippi plantation in the pre-Civil war era, through the eyes of 13 year old Granada. It will entertain you and make you remember the importance of your family roots and story.
Be sure to check out the author interview where Jonathan Odell tells us he just got married in NYC. Jon answers important questions about his book The Healing and explains why he became a writer at age 46. It is a great interview.
You need to read Jonathan Odell's guest post. It is the copy of a speech he gave a St. Joan of Arc's Catholic Church in Minneapolis and he talks about the importance of women in his life. It is long but well worth the time to read.
As June comes to a close I would like to thank Jon for being
the June Minnesota Author in the Spotlight here on Booksnob. He is a excellent, creative writer and a I am glad I got this chance to work with him. I am seriously looking forward to
reading his next book. Please
visit Jon at his website to check out his interview with a 92 year old midwife whom he based The Healing on at: http://www.jon-odell.com/
Jon is the June Author in the Spotlight here on Book Snob and I would like to invite you to read the story behind his book The Healing. You really need to read about how he chose to be a writer and learn about his Mississippi and Minnesota roots. I am proud to announce that Jonathan just got married this week and I would like to Congratulate Jon and Jim on their nuptials. I hope you will have a long and happy life together.
1.
Tell us a little bit about yourself?
I grew up in Mississippi and came to
Minnesota as a VP of HR in 1980. I ran my own consulting company until I
decided to write at age 45. I’ve been fortunate to have two novels published,
which were both inspired by the social insanity of the land of my birth. I got
married in NYC this week to the love of my life, Jim Kuether, who is an award
winning watercolorist and my best editor.
2.What
inspired you to write to The Healing?
Mississippi has been my wondrous monster.
No matter how far I flee, she tracks me down and whispers into my ear, “Explain
me or I’ll drive you crazy.” So I write to reconcile myself with the insanity
of Mississippi around race, sex and religion.
3.Can
you tell us why or when you decided to become a writer?
I was making mucho bucks as an organization
consultant and leadership trainer, but was very depressed. I gave it all up at
46—shut down my business, broke up wiht my partner, sold my house, gave away my
dog, and left the country to shake up my thinking. I spend 3 months in the
jungles of Costa Rica, not speaking the language, trying to find my inner
voice. When I did, it reminded my of my childhood dream of writing. I knew that
I would either keep that dream of mine or die. So I began to write.
4. Usually an author puts some of his own life
experiences in the book.Did you dothat?
All the characters were based on personalities and dilemmas that I came
across in my research. My first novel, THE VIEW FROM DELPHI, is directly taken
from my remembrances of my family, especially my mother. Polly Shine, in THE
HEALING, is the voice and personality of Mrs. Willie Turner, of Midnight,
Mississippi, an African American midwife. She was 92 when I interviewed her and
had “caught” 2063 babies. An audio of the interview is on my website.
5.Do
you like to read?What authors or books
influence you?
I’m glad you asked that. Most people assume you must be an avid
reader to be a writer. I’m not. I read as a way of research. Faulkner, Welty,
and O’Connor explain the south to me the best. The WPA archives which contain
1000 pages of interviews with former slaves in the 1930’sinfluenced the setting and plot of THE
HEALING more than any other source.
6.In
The Healing slaves die from a disease called the Black Tongue.Is this a real disease and can you tell us
more about it?
In the 1900’s it was named pellagra and was discovered to be
caused by a vitamin deficiency. Victims were those who usually had a diet
consisting mostly of corn and animal fat. No lean meat or fruits or vegetable.
This was the diet of the slave, so it became known as a slave disease. As Polly
said, the master “saw the slaves as field animals so he fed them like field
animals.” Polly saw them as people and fed them like people.
7.In
The Healing you mention Little Lord dies young and yet the reader never finds
out how that happens.Can you tell us
how Little Lord died?
Yes, I cut that chapter out. But in my mind, Little Lord
spends the war years in a military academy, went on to college in the
Northeast. He was a frail boy, and died soon after he returned home from
college of influenza.
8.I’m
curious to know more about Granada’s father.He is barely mentioned in the book.Is this intentional and why didn’t Granada want to learn her
father’s
story?
It was intentional. The focus of this book was on the feminine, and the
vital role mothering has in the healing of the world. My next book is on
“fathering’.
9.In one
sentence tell readers why they should read The Healing?
Bottom line, I believe
it’s a wonderful story. If readers pick up any other deeper meaning or lessons,
that’s great. But a good book, above anything else, needs to be a good read.
Thanks Jon!
If you would like to win a copy of The Healing please click the link: The Healing Giveaway
When the mistress of the Satterfield plantation loses her daughter to the cholera epidemic, she loses a piece of her mind. She copes, by taking the daughter of one of her slaves and raising her as her own, much to her husbands chagrin. Granada grows up straddling two worlds, companion and make-believe daughter to the mistress and house slave.
When Granada is 13, in 1860, there is a new disease spreading in the slave quarters so the master decides to buy an old, wizened slave woman for 5000 dollars, who happens to be a healer. Polly Shine heals the people and instills a sense of community and hope. She inevitably turns the plantation upside down and she chooses Granada as her apprentice against her will. Granada has the gift of sight and healing she just needs to believe in herself and remember her people. "Choose for the people, Granada and God will be on your side. Choose for yourself and you'll be walking alone." Pg. 167.
The Healing is told from Granada's point of view 75 years later as she recites her life's story and remembers the people who were a major part of her life. The Healing illuminates the transformative power of story. Odell states in his author's note, "If you want to destroy a people, destroy their story. If you want to empower a people, give them a story to share." Pg. 340.
Polly Shine talked to Granada about freedom but since she had never left the plantation, the word Freedom held little meaning. Granada thoughtFreedomland was another plantation. Polly told Granada "You got to remember Freedom before you can grab it." Pg. 219 The Healing is about remembering who you are and where you come from. It is ultimately about hope and freedom.
Odell has created a novel that encompasses the power of healing, women
and story. He extensively researched African American midwives and listened to the oral histories of hundreds of slaves. Odell has created a vibrant, memorable cast of characters, rich in the African American tradition. As a white male writing from the black female point of view, he has created a believable, authentic historical novel.
Jonathan Odell, author of The Healing, is the June Minnesota Author in the Spotlight and he has written a guest post titled Catching Babies and Rooting Children. He gave this talk at St. Joan of Arc in Minneapolis. On Father's Day, this speech is an ode to parents everywhere and a path to finding our stories. It is the answer to the question on why Jonathan Odell writes about women in his stories.
Catching Babies and Rooting Children
Where I come from, you ask a man, you get the
facts. You ask a woman, you get the story. That’s why in my novels, the women,
the mothers, always have the starring roles.
Lord knows I’ve tried to create leading
characters that were male. I’m all for equal opportunity, but it just doesn’t
work. They are serviceable enough, but lack that snap, crackle, and pop a truly
memorable hero requires. They don’t have the inner depth to carry the book.
It’s like digging through rock.
But put me in the head of a woman, white or
black, and I just can’t shut up.
As a child in Mississippi, my relatives
ritually got together for reunions and holidays on my grandparents’ farm. Inevitably,
the men wandered to the front porch to smoke while the women went to the
kitchen to cook. My cousins charged out to the barnyard to play war with
corncobs and chinaberries.
I was no
fool. I hung out with the women.
I had tried sitting with my father amongst the
men, but they did little to keep me entertained. They would grunt a few words
about the crops or the weather or their pickup trucks.
The
action was back in the kitchen. As pots boiled and potato peelings piled up on
newspapers spread beneath their feet, the women pooled their information about
the extended family—the births and who the babies favored, sicknesses and
deaths, triumphs and tragedies, that ongoing drama that they believed to be the
most interesting thing on God’s earth.
They even
swapped stories about their husbands, those serious mumblers on the front
porch, each woman offering up her man as a loveable object of amusement,
harmless and good-intentioned, but fallible.
When they were all up to date, they told
their memories of growing up with each other. There were twelve children in my
mom’s family, so everybody had a different slant on things. These were stories
I had heard over and over, but they never lost their magic. Like the time my
granny was out hanging clothes and the boar hog got loose. He supposedly ran
between her legs and then rode her around the yard, Granny all the time
trailing a bed sheet behind her like a flag. These women laughed until they
cried and cried until they laughed.
Such voices never die.
In our own home, Daddy was in charge of the
checkbook, making sure the bottom line balanced to the penny. Mother, on the
other hand, was in charge of the picture box, a tattered Buster Brown shoebox
stuffed full of family photos that spanned five generations. I’d pluck them at
random and say, “Tell this one, Momma.”
When my mother narrated a snapshot she didn’t
just say who was in it. Each photo was a vital thread in an intricate web of
stories that revealed the essence of who we were, indeed, why we were.
Depression-era dirt-farm poverty, then the first family automobile, shiny and new;
skeletal, half-starved girls who later show
up beautiful and buxom, with beauty parlor perms. There was direction to our
story and it leaned toward hope. No single event was so burdensome or shameful
that it could not be redeemed. The women who preserved my family’s history
taught me early the truth in that old saying, “facts can explain us, but only
story can save us.”
At mid-life, I was reminded of this again. I
was living in Minnesota, convinced I had overcome my Mississippi heritage. I was
a successful, hard-nosed businessman, committed to learning the “how to’s” of
gaining money, power and position. But there is another old expression. “True
sadness is getting to top of the ladder of success and realizing it is propped
against the wrong wall.” The way my life was heading, all that was left to do
was more of the same. I came up against the paralyzing realization I was long
on how, but short on why.
It was about that time the voices came to me
at night when I lay awake in bed. Women’s voices, strong and southern, tempting
me with stories, calling me back home.
Looking back, it should have been obvious
what was happening. Tom Wolfe once said you can’t go home again. What he didn’t
say was, you can’t totally leave either. It seemed I had escaped Mississippi in
body, but not in soul.
In time, I knew what I had to do. I returned
to Mississippi and sought out the women behind these voices. I was once again ready
to listen.
I started with members of my own family, my
mother and aunts, those women who had raised me.
First they told me the familiar. Then seeing
that I was ready, they shared the darker stories that filled the gaps: tales of
violence, abuse, loss, shame, desertions. Family stories that, even though I had
never heard them, shaped me.
I can’t overstate the impact these insights
had upon me: that hidden stories, the ones which we have no conscious knowledge
of, can mold our lives, determine our fates, even shape the character of a people,
without our consent. That’s when I decided I wanted to write a book that rooted
out these stories, not just of my family, but of my people.
When you open yourself up to the complex
weave of story, and you diligently follow the threads, you can’t predict where
you’ll be led. It’s out of your hands. The story of Mississippi is the story of
race. You can’t get around it. Every thread leads there.
And so I interviewed African American women,
those women who were ever present in my childhood, but whose voices I rarely
heard due to the poison of segregation.
“You
have no reason to trust me,” I told them, “but I’ve got a feeling that your
stories helped to shape who I am.” These women, my fellow Mississippians,
graciously opened up to me.
I was introduced to an older generation of
people who had challenged Jim Crow and ushered in the Civil Rights era, and I
learned once again that the true story was hidden from sight. I discovered that the Civil Rights movement
in Mississippi was originated, supported, and led, not by the preachers and
teachers written about in history books, but by the women--maids, fieldworkers
and “Saturday night brawlers,” as Fannie Lou Hamer called them. Mothers, who
had nothing left to lose but their lives.
These voices, black and white, filled my
first novel.
But the story didn’t end there. After
completing the book, there remained a thread of story I had not followed. The
more I pulled at it, the more it promised to be a much larger story of
motherhood.
When I thought back over my interviews I
recalled a phenomenon that had occurred repeatedly among African Americans,
when they spoke of a certain kind of woman. The midwife, or granny doctors.
Their voices would warm, their faces soften, and they spoke with reverence, a
nearly spiritual regard. This stumped me.
In THE HEALING, I decided to focus on these
healers and midwives. I first had to overcome my own prejudices. White
historians and noted medical authorities treated the work of “granny doctors”
as something to be ridiculed, an uncivilized business steeped in superstition
and ignorance. Yet when the subject came up with the African American women I
interviewed, I they vehemently disagreed. They regarded these women with great
reverence. I had stumbled upon a mother’s story, larger than any I had
imagined.
My breakthrough came while I was doing
research at a Mississippi College and happened to strike up a conversation with
a professor of Southern gender studies. I mentioned that I had come across many
stories about midwives who practiced until the 1940’s, when public health
services began replacing them. I guess she noticed the dismissive tone in my
voice. I may have even referred to them as granny doctors.
She said, “You realize there was an
orchestrated campaign to discredit these women, don’t you? They were seen as an
obstacle by the medical establishment. They were vilified as dirty and barbaric
and pushed aside.”
I told her I had not heard this, but that I
really didn’t see it as a great tragedy. After all, I countered, didn’t
midwives do superstitious things like bury placentas in the backyard? And they
weren’t professionally trained or licensed. They claimed to have been called by
God. Surely the medical model was a better alternative.
She firmly let me know I had missed the
point. “You’re talking about black women at a time when they had less authority
in their lives than anybody. Many were illiterate. When one chose to be a
midwife, it was a challenge to the power structure, to the established order of
being subservient not only to whites, but to black men as well. The vocation
took them out of the home, away from their families and out of the domestic
control of their husbands, and into the homes of other men, at all times of day
and night, mothering an entire community. How were they to obtain consent for
such an undertaking? Black women had no
voice.
To do this under their own authority would be
futile. But to say, ‘God told me to do it,’ was a way of taking the decision
out of the hands of those who normally regulated their lives. It was not
sentimental to say God chose you. It was defiant.”
As for those superstitious practices like
burying the placenta or putting a knife under the bed to “cut the pain”, she
challenged me to look deeper for cultural explanations. She said, “The midwives tended not only to the
physical wellbeing of the woman, but to her place in the community, and in a
larger sense, to the soul of her people.
For four hundred years, the message of slavery was that a black man
belonged wherever a white man told him. He could be sold the next day. Or his
children. Jim Crow, wasn’t much better. Imagine a midwife, who takes the
placenta and buries it, emphasizing the message, or perhaps the prayer, that
this child is rooted in this world, in a greater web of community, with his
people. That he indeed has a place. Can you imagine the power of that?”
It was like a veil had lifted. I had found
the book I wanted to write. A book about belonging, about the women who knit us
into the world.
During my research I learned that during and
after slavery, these women, actively subverted the messages of white supremacy.
The slave master and the architects of Jim Crow derived their power by
reinforcing the belief that God and scripture placed African Americans on the
lowest rung of humanity. By treating
their patients as deserving children of an inclusive God, the midwives challenged
that message. They proved to young black girls that women could occupy powerful
roles in the community.
They demonstrated that black mothers were worthy
of admiration, respect and emulation. These midwives were part of a resistance
on whose shoulders stood King, Abernathy and Malcolm X stood.
I was privileged to interview several elderly
women who had “caught” thousands of children in their communities. Over their
lives, they had bonded their people together with a common sense of history,
pride, and belonging.
I remember
the words of Mrs. Willie Turner, of Midnight, Mississippi, nearly 91 at the
time. I can still here her advice to me. “Jonathan, don’t forget God, ’cause He
is the Head of the Heaven. In your work with that book, put God in front and
you’ll make it. That’s what I did and I done made it to 90 years old.”
In fact, she made it to 99, and I’m sure God was in front all the
way.
Before I left, I asked her what it had meant
to her to be a midwife. She looked out of her window, and succinctly gave me
the theme for my novel. She said, “I caught 2,063 babies in this county alone
and they all call me Mother.” The she said,
“And you know, they everyone still my child.”
Jonathan Odell is the Minnesota author in the spotlight here on Booksnob for the month of June and he has graciously offered to giveaway 3 hardcover copies to U. S. followers and 2 ebook copies to followers anywhere in the world who prefer an ecopy. Contest will end on June 30th at midnight.
Here is the synopsis of The Healing from Goodreads: Mississippi plantation
mistress Amanda Satterfield loses her daughter to cholera after her
husband refuses to treat her for what he considers to be a “slave
disease.” Insane with grief, Amanda takes a newborn slave child as her
own and names her Granada, much to the outrage of her husband and the
amusement of their white neighbors. Troubled by his wife’s disturbing
mental state and concerned about a mysterious plague sweeping through
his slave population, Master Satterfield purchases Polly Shine, a slave
reputed to be a healer. But Polly’s sharp tongue and troubling
predictions cause unrest across the plantation. Complicating matters
further, Polly recognizes “the gift” in Granada, the mistress’s pet, and
a domestic battle of wills ensues.
Seventy-five years later,
Granada, now known as Gran Gran, is still living on the plantation and
must revive the buried memories of her past in order to heal a young
girl abandoned to her care. Together they learn the power of story to
heal the body, the spirit and the soul.
Rich in mood and
atmosphere, The Healing is the kind of novel readers can’t put
down—and can’t wait to recommend once they’ve finished.
Contest Rules: Leave a Comment Fill out the form Must be a Booksnob follower Choose which type of book you prefer: Hardcover or Ebook. (remember hardcover will only be sent to U.S. residents) Ends June 30th at midnight.
It's June! I love June, it is my favorite month of the whole year. How much do I love June, let me count the ways. 1. because my birthday is in June, 2. school is out for the summer in June, 3. I get to play and have adventures with my kids for the whole summer, 4. June is warm and I can go to the beach and read, 5. because I love planting and watching my garden grow and 6. this year in June, I am taking students to the National History Day event and staying in the dorms at the University of Maryland for a whole week. 7. Oh and let us remember the lazy days spent reading outside on the deck swing with the kids and dog. I could go on and on but I won't because I need to introduce June's Author in the Spotlight, Jonathan Odell!
Welcome Jonathan.
Jonathan Odell is the author of A View From Delphi and The Healing.
Here is the synopsis of The Healing from Goodreads:
Mississippi plantation
mistress Amanda Satterfield loses her daughter to cholera after her
husband refuses to treat her for what he considers to be a “slave
disease.” Insane with grief, Amanda takes a newborn slave child as her
own and names her Granada, much to the outrage of her husband and the
amusement of their white neighbors. Troubled by his wife’s disturbing
mental state and concerned about a mysterious plague sweeping through
his slave population, Master Satterfield purchases Polly Shine, a slave
reputed to be a healer. But Polly’s sharp tongue and troubling
predictions cause unrest across the plantation. Complicating matters
further, Polly recognizes “the gift” in Granada, the mistress’s pet, and
a domestic battle of wills ensues.
Seventy-five years later,
Granada, now known as Gran Gran, is still living on the plantation and
must revive the buried memories of her past in order to heal a young
girl abandoned to her care. Together they learn the power of story to
heal the body, the spirit and the soul.
Rich in mood and
atmosphere, The Healing is the kind of novel readers can’t put
down—and can’t wait to recommend once they’ve finished.
This month, the wonderful month of June you can expect a book review, an author interview, a contest and hopefully (fingers crossed) a guest post. Stop by Jonathan's website http://www.jon-odell.com/or facebook page http://www.facebook.com/jonohohoh and keep checking in at Booksnob as June is going to be great a month!
