Monday Book Recs--Sherman and Schwab

The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman

This is a novel I would never try to write. A white girl born of a long line of Southern aristocrats who is dealing with her parents divorce ends up back in time before the Civil War, seeing the effects of slavery for herself. There are so many ways that it could go wrong, so many ways that it could be read the wrong way. But in the end, I think it works. At least, it works for me, a white girl born in the lower middle class. I can't speak for others, if this is a story that co-opts the experience of blacks. I was fascinated by the turn that the story takes when the white girl is actually mistaken for a slave, the child of a white man and his part-black slave whom he takes to France to marry. She is left behind in a house where she is put to work in the house, so long as she behaves properly. I loved Gone With the Wind in high school, but this is a long way from the slaves in Gone With the Wind, thank goodness. I also really loved the light touch of magic here, the sense that it was not contained, that it flowed over into every aspect of life, that there was magic bubbling up everywhere. Don't know how to explain why it felt like that, but it did.


The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab

I have to say that one of the things I loved about this book was simply the feel of it. I though a little about the narrowness of the scope and the way in which the story was circumlocuted by the border of the town itself, but it worked for me. I liked the first person, persent tense narration. I believed in this place, and I believed in this character. I believed in the Near Witch, too, on a story level and also on a metaphorical level. There is something true about the dark stories we tell and sometimes those stories can come back to haunt us. Is that the fault of the stories or our fault, for telling them, for making them real? On the one hand, this is a novel about trying to find missing children and protect a little sister. It is also a sweet, gentle romance. And a story about difference. I like the story about stories themselves the best.