Divining Women
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- ¥850
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In her darkest yet most redeeming novel, Gibbons scorches us with a Þrestorm of despair-and then resurrects love and hope from its very ashes.
Autumn 1918: Rumors of peace are spreading across America, but spreading even faster are the first cases of Spanish influenza, whispering of the epidemic to come. Maureen Ross, well past a safe childbearing age, is experiencing a difficult pregnancy. Her husband, Troop-cold and careless of her condition-is an emotional cripple who has battered her spirit throughout their marriage. As Maureen's time grows near, she becomes convinced she will die in childbirth. Into this loveless ménage arrives Mary Oliver, Troop's niece. The sheltered child of a well-to-do, freethinking Washington family, Mary comes to help Maureen in the last weeks of her confinement. Horrified by Troop's bullying, she soon discovers that her true duty is to protect her aunt.
As the influenza spreads and the death toll grows, Troop's spiteful behaviors worsen. Tormenting his wife, taunting her for her "low birth," hiding her mother's letters, Troop terrorizes the household. But when Mary fights back, he begins to go over the edge, and Maureen rallies, releasing a stunning thunderstorm of confrontation and, ultimately, finding spiritual renewal.
The Boston Globe hailed On the Occasion of My Last Afternoonas "another gift from Kaye Gibbons to the literature celebrating strong women of every age and era." Much the same can be said of Divining Women.
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Gibbons (Ellen Foster; On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon; etc.) hearkens back to the Bront sisters with her penchant for the gothic in this rather stilted novel of female oppression and liberation. As WWI draws to an end, 22-year-old Mary Oliver sits at home in Washington, D.C., waiting for her postgraduate literature classes at Radcliffe to begin. To give her something to do, her mother, Martha, suggests that she travel to North Carolina to visit Martha's estranged half-brother, Troop, and his wife, Maureen, who is expecting a baby. Troop was a terror as a boy and young man, but Martha is sure he has changed since his marriage. Mary, however, arrives to find that Maureen has been all but destroyed by Troop's psychological manipulation and verbal abuse. Troop refuses to allow newspapers into his house and intercepts all letters, reinforcing the impression that, though war is raging in Europe, the real battle of the novel is being fought on the domestic front. Diagnosed with "female hysteria," Maureen has been subjected to various demeaning "treatments." Troop blames both her and Mary's family for his elderly mother's death and rules by fear in his quest for moral superiority, while Maureen is coached by Mary to fight for freedom and self-fulfillment. Mary is well suited to the task, since she comes from an unconventional family her grandfather, one of the novel's most appealing characters, is a nudist. Reading aloud from letters written by a family friend who sought adventures abroad, Mary helps Maureen draw closer to an appreciation of "the joy at the confluence of love and freedom." Erratic storytelling weakens the novel, but Gibbons's tale is atmospheric and unsettling, narrated in hushed Victorian tones and ornamented with period flourishes.
