Wish You Well by David Baldacci

Wish You Well, by David Baldacci. 2000. New York: Warner Books. 400 pp. ISBN: 0446527165

Author David Baldacci, best known for his suspense thrillers, has taken a different course in the writing of Wish You Well. Drawing on oral histories told to him by his grandmother and his mother, of his ancestral home in southwestern Virginia, Mr. Baldacci has written an emotional family drama set in the 1940's, where the struggle to survive in the Appalachian Mountains is a daily way of life.

At the opening of the story, the Cardinal family is living in New York City. The father, Jack Cardinal, has been offered a new career, in California, writing for the movies. His wife, Amanda, is unsure of the move and tries to persuade her husband to return to his roots in rural Virginia. The debate ends quickly with a terrible automobile crash that leaves the broken family no other choice but to go to Virginia. On the train heading to her great-grandmother's home on the mountain, 12 year old Lou tries to reassure her younger brother, seven year old Oz, that everything will be all right. The children slowly adjust to their new home and new "family", which includes not just their great-grandmother Louisa, but also a young black man named Eugene, who Louisa has raised from infancy, as well as, a young Yankee lawyer, Cotton Longfellow, who happens to be a descendant of Henry Wordsworth Longfellow. Together, they all work hard to take care of the farm and each other. Several conflicts arise with Louisa's neighbor George Davis, a hard man who lets his family starve, though his farm is one of the most profitable on the mountain. The largest conflict, however, is with the mighty Southern Valley Gas Company, who wants Louisa's land. With the loss of the timber industry and the closing of several of the area coalmines, Louisa's neighbors are anxious for her to sell out, so they can do the same. It is up to the inexperienced Yankee lawyer, Cotton, to fight for Louisa's right to keep her land.

On the surface, the story is about the destruction and eventual healing of a family, however, the underlining theme of the story is the battle between industry and nature, which is being fought everyday. There are those who take from the land and never give back, leaving waste and devastation in their wake. Then, there are those who understand the balance of give and take, respecting the land and not taking for granted the gifts of the earth. Also, there are those who think only of immediate gratification and profit without regard for the future, while others think of past and future generations wanting to preserve the heritage and freedom of mountain living. It is doubtful that the two points of view will ever come to see eye to eye. It is hard to convince a man, desperate for a job, that the beauty of the mountains should be preserved and not blown to bits in order to extract the mineral resources hidden deep inside. Likewise, it is equally hard to convince a freedom loving mountain farmer that the money from earned working for big industry is better than the unpredictability of nature's bounty.

The characters are endearing and the visual descriptions are vivid. The story moves along at a good pace with plenty of drama. The only downside to the story is that the ending is somewhat predictable. Overall a good entertaining read.

A Place Called Freedom

A Place Called Freedom by Ken Follett, 1995. Crown. 405 pp.

A Place Called Freedom. The title alone gets the imagination going, somewhere perhaps only the mind will ever find. There are as many ideals of freedom as there are forms of bondage. Best-selling author Ken Follett's novel tells the story of two different lives each a victim of bondage inherited by birth, one physical fraught with pain and the other emotional, the kind that is bred in for generations. Each of them desperate to escape.

The novel begins in the hills of Scotland, mid 1700's. "The high mountain sides, the quiet mysterious woods and the laughing water formed a landscape familiar to his soul." This was High Glen, home of Lizzie, the high-spirited daughter of the widow Lady Hamillim, laird of the estate.

On the other side of the mountain, owned by Sir George Jamisson, where "Engineers had torn great holes in the mountain sides; manmade hills of slag disfigured the valley; massive wagons loaded with coal plowed the muddy roads; and the stream was black with dust." This was the world of Mack McAsh. Pledged by his parents at his christening, to labor in Sir Jamisson's coal mines "until he die", for the price of 10 pounds.

The vivid descriptions Follett gives of the conditions in the mines and of the hardships endured by the workers, not just the men who hammered the hard rock for 15 hrs a day, but also the women and children who hauled on their backs, up wooden steps loads of 70 to 150 lbs, creates a world I wish was only an imagination, all the while knowing it was, and to a certain degree is, in existence.

More, subtle are the chains of emotional bondage. They are what hold Lizzie in a world of aristocratic marriage and family duty. Her mind raised to believe in the natural superiority of her class, yet her heart believed in the equal humanity of the miners.

Mack and Lizzie's lives, though vastly different, entwine like strands of a braid, where each time their paths cross, they form a tighter bond, as fate and desire carry them along in their search of freedom, to the land of Virginia, where in 1766 the whispers of revolution, were barely a stir in the air. Mack disembarks from the hull of the ship he has been chained to for six weeks into a world where not only are children born into bondage, but a place where humans are a commodity. Whether they be captives or convicts, orphans or bastards, black or white, Christian or Jew, the slave traders didn't care, they held no prejudice, they would sell any soul unlucky enough to come on the block. And if Lizzie wasn't careful, she could find herself one of those unfortunates. Her father's death left her mother with no choice but to mortgage the High Glen Estate to Sir Jamisson and it was Lizzie's duty to marry one of the Jamisson twins, if she wanted to keep her mother from losing the estate. After Lizzie marries and she reaches America, she finds out just how imprisoned she really is.

Centuries later, a broken iron collar unearthed on a farm called High Glen, in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, gives hope that Mack and Lizzie did find their place called Freedom. Have you found yours?

A Place Called Freedom is action packed and full of adventure, romance and great characters. As primarily a non-fiction reader, I found Mr. Follett’s historical setting both interesting and informative, while some parts I found read like a romance novel. The story moved quickly and I developed a genuine concern for the characters. The novel also gave me a richer perspective of the lives of my ancestors, whose search for freedom has given me mine.

On the Occassion of My last Afternoon by Kaye Gibbons

On the Occassion of My last Afternoon by Kaye Gibbons. 1998. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 273 pp.

Emma Garnet Tate, raised on a James River plantation in Virginia before the Civil War, recollects her past, as her life comes to an end, in Kaye Gibbons' fifth novel. Gibbons, a native of North Carolina, has received numerous awards for her writing. However, I did not find this particular novel to be worthy of any awards.

Emma begins her narration with an episode of her father's cruelty inflicted on one of his slaves. At the time she is but twelve years old, "I do not know what to make of this now, because I am too young." is her reaction to her father's "accidental" killing of a "nigger".
Yet, Emma knows it was no accident. Even at her young age, she knows her father is a liar.

The reader learns early on that Emma’s father has a deep dark secret shared only by Clarice a servant that has been with Mr. Tate since he was eight years old. Clarice is not
a slave, she is a free Negro that made the choice to raise Mr. Tate after she was witness to
the horrific secret of his past. She is the only one who has any kind of influence over Mr. Tate, a tyrannical, self-made man, the type of man who became the worst stereotype of the Southern man of his times. He has wealth and a certain degree of power, but does not have the respect of his neighbors or his family. Tate is a bully not only to his slaves, but also to his family. He feels his son Whately does not fully appreciate the accomplishments of his father and that he takes for granted his privileges of higher education and social standing. Mr. Tate's nightly tirades often send his poor fragile wife to her room with terrible headaches.

Emma grows up sympathetic to the plight of those around her. She often saves her mother from her father nights she hears her mother crying from the bedroom, feigning some excuse, such as a younger sibling's fever, to release her mother from her father’s rage. She idolizes her older brother Whately for his kindness to her in allowing her the use of his books, which give her as a girl the give of literature not available to many young ladies of her time. She feels superior to her younger sister Maureen, who she sees as a Daddy’s girl, with no real substance. Her other younger brothers are only mentioned briefly here and there. She spends most of her time in the company of Clarice and develops early on, much to her father’s disliking, a sense that slavery is wrong and that the Negroes should be treated more humanely.

As the memories progress, Emma relates the love of her husband, a “Yankee” doctor, from a very prominent Boston family. Emma leaves her mother, to follow her husband to North Carolina, promising to return for her and save her from the evil Mr. Tate. However, Emma never does return for her mother, leaving her with a lifetime of guilt and regret. Emma has a picturesque life with her adoring husband and beautiful daughters, until the start of the war, when Quincy, Emma’s adoring husband, takes up running a Confederate hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina. Emma is then immersed in a world of blood, gore, suffering and loss. She spends her days at her husband’s hospital, nursing the wounded and dying Confederate soldiers, who are fighting for a cause that she, herself, disagrees with.

While Gibbon’s writing has eloquence and a sense of literary style, I became bored with the story less than halfway through. I found Emma to be a bit whiny and self-absorbed. Her character at times was hypocritical of her beliefs. Upon moving to Raleigh, her husband buys the freedom of three Negroes, only to use them as paid servants in their household, while witholding from them the knowledge of their freedom. So, I say, where was the freedom? Does paying them for their services make up for their inability to choose to stay or go?

Near the end of the novel, the reader learns Mr. Tate’s secret, but it leaves one wondering why the wise Clarice did not have a more positive impact on the youth she rescued. How, with all her guidance and influence, did he become the monster Emma portrays in her reminisces? And even with the knowledge of her father’s secret and his death, there is never a sense of forgiveness for his sins. In the last paragraph of the book Emma states, “On the occasion of my last afternoon, I feel no sorrow, feel no regret…”, but this is not the feeling the reader is left with at the end of the story. I felt disappointed that her character never rose above the hatred of her father or the guilt of her mother. I felt while she admitted to a wonderful life with her adoring husband, beautiful children and more money than she would ever need, she simply pitied herself and made herself out to be the a martyr in a cruel world, but in reality every other character in the story had a much harder life than she did.

The fact is no matter how bad most of us may feel our lives to be at any given time, I can almost guarantee that at any given moment, there is someone else on this earth that is experiencing pain and hardship that can only be imagined with horror. Keep in mind, no matter how awful you think your life may be, there is always someone in the world who is worse off, so be thankful for the good, do not hold anyone else accountable for your miseries, take responsibility for yourself and your situation, as you are the only one who can change it and self-pity gets you nowhere.