The Healing

I really loved this book. The writing is so good. The story is so unique. I read a lot and Gayle Jones is one of the most original writers. She gets the blood pumping in your brain, I tell ya. Plus, she's got a wicked sense of humor. Highly recommended.

At first glance this book seems like a typical read that might appear in Oprah's bookclub selection. The novel is described on its own back cover as "A moving affirmation of forgiveness and trust...cause for hope, sustenance and even celebration". Yet a deeper read shows that this work in fact "signifies" or parodies this sort of book. After reading the book it soon becomes apparent that it is not Harlan who is telling this story but that it is in fact probably Joan who is the author. The exaggerated black southern vernacular reveals that the book is in fact most likely written by an educated person who is trying to imitate the dialect of an uneducated black woman. Joan, as we know, was a chemistry major in college and is shown to be a well-read and educated woman. Also, although on the surface Harlan is portrayed as a success story (poor little black girl overcomes poverty and obstacles to become a famous and accomplished woma), at the same time Harlan is not exactly a positive or likeable character. She sleeps with her client's exhusband, has an affair with a German horse breeder named Josef who is married, and makes a living in the dubious profession of faith healing. Overall she is shown to be untrustworthy and most likely a charlatan. Although Joan seems a little crazy at times and is a self-proclaimed bitch, she is a better person than Joan. For one thing she is not promiscuous and she has an interest in the struggles of others and helps people who have been exiled (even though this ends badly). The best support for Joan as true author comes on pg. 275 where Harlan and Joan's first meeting takes place: "Hi, I'm Joan Savage. Savage, or it was Eagleton. No, my own name Eagleton. I'm Harlan Eagleton." Or perhaps this is fictional author Amanda Wordlaw's book? On pg. 248-249 Wordlaw's book is described as having "a modified frame and an open-ended resolution" and "the heroine of this book satirizes herself". In Wordlaw's book "the women...are supposedly not pleased with others' ideas of who they are and are constantly redefining themselves their own ideals or possibliities of womanhood." It is no coincidence I think that this describes not only Wordlaw's but also Jones's book. There is no sure answer to the question "Who is the author of this novel?" but is is evident that a closer read reveals that despite the surface appearances it is not Harlan's voice that we hear.

Amidst much hype and hoopla award winning African-American writer Gayl Jones has delivered her first novel in twenty years. It lives up to the hype and deserves the hoopla. The Healing is the story of Harlan Jane Eagleton, a sharp-edged, questioning faith-healer cum beautician, race track habitue, rock star manager, and astute observer. As narrator she relates her experiences spunkily and discursively. We meet her aboard a bus headed for one of the many small towns she visits. Clad in bomber jacket and jeans, Harlan dips into mustard sauced sardines as she contemplates her seat mate and her destination - she'll stay with a woman known for her strawberry pies, and go to the basement of the Freewill Baptist Church to show her "miracles and wonders." It is also there that she will again meet Nicholas, a man of import to the faith-healer, and her witness to healing who "stands up in front of the people and tells them all folksy-like about the first time I ever healed someone." Much later we learn that before Harlan could reach out to others, first and primarily, she first had to learn to heal herself. Harlan's story is also interwoven with the life of a German horse breeder, Josef, whom she meets at Saratoga. He takes her to his farm in Kentucky, a blue grass bastion protected by guards. "I ain't never been in the company of anyone who needed bodyguards before and no bulletproof windows," Harlan says. "But I been with others, ordinary people, who played games of who do you trust. " Yet she accepts this situation with elan, just as she accepts other extraordinary happenings. For to this woman, each event is a springboard to a greater question, a query that reaches far beyond boundaries of color or culture. One of the most interesting relationships to be explored is found between Harlan and the singer she manages, Joan Savage, who is a bit of a pugnacious pixie with a thatch of straight up yellow hair.. It's a symbiotic pairing fraught with both confrontation, after the singer discovers her ex-husband and her manager together, and consolation, as Harlan encourages Joan's career. And, it is in the exchanges between these two strong women that the reader is often privileged to see the author at her nuanced best, describing "the lightning still sleeping" in Joan's eyes or "But she's watching me. Like she the hunter. And I'm the deer." At the outset Harlan has only a modicum of self-knowledge, yet is savvy in her observations of humankind. While her route is circuitous, it is through deliberations and experiences that she eventually reaches her truth. It has been a risky journey but one well worth taking for Harlan and the reader. - Gail Cooke

Gayl Jones speaks the truth like no other writer. Her characters go on long, entertaining and insightful rants. They burst into soliloquies and reveal the inherent racism in America with humor. Her text shows how American culture legitimizes and perpetuates cultural insensitivity at every point. The main character, Harlan Jane Eagleton, discovers she can "heal" people of all sorts of ills, but she can't tackle society's ills. Her own path toward self-healing takes her all around the world, where she meets up with various stereotype-breaking people. The only minor flaws in this book are an inconsistent narrative voice and confusing narrative structure, but Jones playfully addresses both criticisms in her text, thus subverting any complaints. A book of the ages for the ages.

This novel educates, illuminates, and entertains. It is replete with insights into our social condition. By entering into the mind of the main character, Harlan Jane Eagleton, we learn about an extremely diverse (economically, intellectually, and culturally) group of black people and the choices that she and they have made. As we get to know them, we are challenged to examine our own lives and ideas and the authenticity and integrity with which we live them. One might conclude from this book that DuBois' premise that a "Talented Tenth" would lead the way to freedom and achievement requires further refinement. This book does not bash black men, and its women are not victims. They are all people who have made choices, and, in understanding theirs, we may better understand our own. The few whites in the book, although minor characters, demonstrate some of the more insidious dynamics of racism. Whereas, Jones' first novel, Corregidora focused more on the long history of sexual and emotional oppression and abuse of black women in America, The Healing highlights the dis-ease in the relationships that blacks in the U.S. have amongst themselves, with whites, and with blacks in other parts world, so that we can heal ourselves and each other.