Laelia
A Novel
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Each of the Cates sisters had felt for a time that their husbands should be put away where they wouldn’t have to take care of them anymore—it’s time to make some changes.
So begins the powerful, empowering journey of three women who decide to get a fresh start on life—and embark upon a plan to place their men in care facilities.
Daughters of a prominent African American family, Rebecca, Claudia, and Gracelyn Cates are ready to leave their ailing husbands—no match for their wives in their unusual vigor, strong constitutions, and mental energy—behind. And if they play their cards right, the Cates sisters will keep their good names intact, despite the Old Testament rantings of their misogynist pastor and relentlessly gossiping neighbors in their small-town world of Peoria, Illinois.
Claudia, instructed by eldest sister Rebecca to be more outgoing, enchants her parochial neighbors with her urbane chic. Gracelyn stages a Sunday school play about Harriet Tubman. And when Hillary Clinton appears at a churchwomen's tea party they're hosting, the Cates sisters establish themselves as indisputable leaders of their community. United in their purpose, the Cates women transcend the hand fate dealt them and find themselves anew, with the possibility of midlife romance. An unforgettable story of love, loss, and sisterly devotion, Laelia is a tale about the ties that bind and liberate us all.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Garnett tracks the fortunes of three middle-aged African-American sisters as they shed their ailing husbands and embark on new life adventures in her prim, occasionally stilted debut. After years of living apart, Rebecca, Claudia and Gracelyn Cates have settled down, along with their husbands, in the stately Peoria home where they grew up. Rebecca's husband, Jake, has brain damage from head trauma; Claudia's Timothy is in the final, devastating stages of alcoholism; and Gracelyn's Bernard has been ravaged by bone cancer. Much of the book chronicles the sisters' efforts to "put their men away without scandal" in a nursing home, while the major subplot revolves around Rebecca's scheme to oust the corrupt, misogynistic preacher of First Baptist, Reverend Wilson, and become deaconess. She's darkly pleased to learn that Wilson has misappropriated church funds to finance breast implants for his wife, but fate supplies a tender twist when she falls for Randall Leighton, the doctor she tricks to get the news. Garnett is a compassionate, competent storyteller, but quiet plotting produces little drama, and a keen focus on the minutiae of daily life Rebecca's orchid business, the sisters' Sunday tea ritual slows the pace. The Reverend Wilson's wife steps forward to play an unexpected role at the end, and a last-ditch plot twist concerning Jake's past indiscretions is little more than an afterthought. Garnett's solid, well-drawn characters are this novel's greatest strength.
