Conjure Women

Conjure Women by Afia Atakora, 400 pages

During Slaverytime, Rue learned how to be a conjure woman and healer for the slaves at Marse Charles' cotton plantation. Rue's mother, May Belle, helped keep the older slaves healthy and helped usher many new babies into the world, while concocting several "hoodoo conjures" and "curses" for the slaves and masters alike. No matter that these conjures and curses pretty much amounted to satchels of herbs or funny sticks--what mattered is that the people who asked for them believed in their power.

Now that the Civil War has ended though, Rue is on her own trying to help the former slaves have babies and recover from all sorts of illnesses and injuries. But two people are making it mighty difficult for the former slaves to believe in Rue's ministrations: traveling preacher Bruh Abel and Bean, a light-skinned, black-eyed child that everyone believes is a familiar of the devil. Between these two, Rue has enough trouble, but throw in a few complicating secrets, and she has quite the task at hand.

Told in chapters that hop back and forth between Slaverytime, Freedomtime, and Wartime, this debut novel weaves a complex Civil War-era story in which the war itself serves only as a way to mark time and all the action focuses on the residents of a single former plantation. It's a fantastic look at the lives of African American women during the war, and I highly recommend it.