Fire of the Five Hearts

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 19 AUG. 2002

Suffering from an attack of an anxiety-driven illness, social worker Smith visited a doctor who told her that according to Chinese medical philosophy, every person has five hearts. Relieved, Smith decided that she'd need all five, because one wasn't enough to effectively do the work that had defined her life for the past 20 years. In her quest to bring light to what she calls the gravest and most destructive atrocity to be thrust upon children, Smith writes candidly about her experience as a social worker treating incest. The chilling, journal-like narrative begins with the tale of four-year-old Isabella, who was sexually abused by her father. It was Smith's fifth day on the job, and as she interviewed the shy girl, she was overwhelmed by her maternal need to protect the child. While waiting for the arrival of Isabella's foster family, Smith bathed the child in a sink, hoping to "polish and shine her" in an effort to detract from the impurity that had been forced upon her. She proceeds to fill the book with a series of equally troubling cases, in which Smith and her colleagues serve as ex post facto saviors, collecting the battered and bruised and trying to reassemble their lives. Written reflectively, the book acknowledges the fragility of those who are called to heal the broken. Smith, who also leads training sessions for new social workers, posits there is no recipe for resilience, but certainly this book can be added to the social worker's toolkit because, along with some of the distressing accounts of horror, there is also hope.