Genevieve Charbonneau talks to ghosts and has a special relationship with rattlesnakes. In her travels, she’s wandered throughout the South, escaping a mental hospital in Alabama, working for a Louisiana circus, and dancing at a hoochy-kootch in Texas. Now for the first time in a decade, she’s allowed her winding path to bring her to the site of her grandmother’s Arkansas farmhouse, a place hallowed in her memory.
She intends only to visit briefly – to pay respects to her buried loved ones and leave. But a chance meeting with a haunted young Vietnam vet reconnects her with the remnants of a family she thought long gone, and their union becomes a catalyst for change and salvation. An abused woman and her daughters develop the courage to fight back, a ghost finds the path away from life, and a sanctimonious predator becomes the prey. In the process, Genevieve must choose between her longing for meaningful connection after years as an outsider and her equally excruciating impulse to run.
Written by a naturalist and set on the land where her family roots stretch back two centuries, The Song of the Blue Bottle Tree is a haunting story about letting go and the things we leave behind, the power of names, and the ties that bind. It is both harrowing and triumphant, a visceral Southern debut as otherworldly and beautiful as it is unflinching and wry.
CW/TW – Well, there’s a lot here.
Dear Ms. Hayford,
I hesitated when I read the blurb for this book. I debated with myself. I reread the blurb and other reviews. I debated and hesitated some more and then decided to go for it. I’m very glad I did. I’ll go ahead and tell readers that this is not a romance, not one bit of one. It’s Southern Gothic and will take readers into dark places. The CW/TW I’ve listed are not to be taken lightly. Why did I decide to try it? For the women.
Oleana Larkin sheds that name after she escapes from the Alabama State Mental Hospital. In the mid 1960s it’s easy to pay a small fee at a courthouse and buy yourself a new identity. Now calling herself Genevieve, she’s on the road heading nowhere after a few years working in a circus and dancing off-season in strip clubs. Don’t judge her. When she runs into Mercer Ives, he’s just returned from Vietnam, a Navy medic (sand sailor) who humped the jungle boonies with Marines. His nightmares and some ghosts have come back with him. Genevieve has her own set of ghosts and to her (initial) dismay, discovers she can see and hear one of Mercer’s.
When they arrive back at his family’s farm, after Gen forces Mercer to call to reassure his mama that he’s okay, she discovers something, something that Wreath Ives knew immediately when she saw Gen. Gen also discovers that some fucked-up shit is going on in this household. Her plan had been to quickly leave but she couldn’t. Somehow she and Mercer have to fix things no matter how hard that will be to do.
Much of the story is told with gentle imagery telling of the horrors that happen. But some are laid flat out. At times it’s not easy to read. Later on, scenes that are initially sketched out or totally skipped are revisited, filling in what I guessed had happened. The language is often very Southern in flavor and, yippee, gets it right.
Many of the characters are not nice or kind people. It’s fairly obvious who needs to be booed at. There is one person who is terrible but there’s a reason for that. Think “the sins of the father.” Those who are nice mostly come with issues. Some are naïve and at times had me shaking my head but the main part of the book takes place in the 1960s and times were indeed different. Some characters are trapped due to poor judgement or because an evil person came into their lives. Mercer fled only to return with PTSD. Gen survived as best she could. But all of them, or most of them, are believable.
The things that Gen and Mercer’s mother and younger sisters are faced with are terrible. Gen has been forged through adversity and is young enough to fight back. Wreath has been beaten down since before her marriage, watched one daughter side with their oppressor, and worries about the two youngest. Yet when the need arises, Wreath has got more gumption that a lot of people give her credit for. Gen loathes Mercer’s father but she’s got enough street smarts to know how to fight back and becomes a role model for Jezzie and Leah. Helen Reddy’s iconic song I Am Woman could have been inspired by Gen.
Woven through the story are the spirits and ghosts who haunt both Gen and Mercer. Mercer’s are some of what he brought back with him from the jungles of Vietnam but many of Gen’s have been with her all her life while others speak to her as she tends graves and cemeteries. At times they will help her at other times chide her about little things, and twice they will save her life. Meanwhile Bigger, who doesn’t want to haunt his friend Mercer, became one of my favorite characters. The scene where Mercer finally lays his friend to rest had me in tears.
The grand finale when Good overcomes Evil is quite a scene. Little things that have been mentioned and then let rest come into play. The Archangel Michael is even there with his flaming sword. Or maybe not. One character who is there is one I was cheering on, “Go, grandmother, go!” The end isn’t pretty for Evil but he definitely had it coming.
The characters are complex and well rounded. The issues are all too real. Here the abuse is mainly from fundamentalist religion but that’s not the only way such horrors can enter the world. The writing is fluid and engaging and I love how the reader is allowed to pick up on clues about what is to come without being hit over the head with them multiple times. The ending is happy but it’s an earned happy rather than a sudden and unearned smoothing over of the pain that came before. I strongly suggest that potential readers look at the trigger and content warnings before diving in but I’m delighted that I decided to try it. A-
~Jayne
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Jayne
Another long time reader who read romance novels in her teens, then took a long break before started back again about 25 years ago. She enjoys historical romance/fiction best, likes contemporaries, action- adventure and mysteries, will read suspense if there’s no TSTL characters and is currently reading more fantasy and SciFi.
