The Woodsman's Daughter

A stunning, moving epic novel set in nineteenth century Georgia, 'The Woodsmans Daughter' is sure to touch your heart if you have one. The nineteen hundreds isn't the time of women's liberation or 'capable' females, yet the story is about ladies with cores of steel and men with spines of jellyfish. 'The Woodsmans Daughter' spans three generations, following our tragically spoiled heroine Dalia Miller from a young girl, to a young woman, to a mother, and lastly a grandmother. Dalia has the gutsy will of Scarlett O'Hara but her selfishness makes Scarlett look like Melanie. Life is cruel, and doesn't spare feisty Dalia any of its ruthless surprises. The book is divided into three parts, first focusing on Monroe Miller, Dalia's father, and his hard life as a turpentine farmer. He finds the atmosphere of his self-made Millertown, deep in the woods of longleaf pines, more congenial that his fancy house with his laudanum addicted wife and two willful daughters. The second part is Dalia's life after growing up, managing her own survival in a world not designed for single women. The last part is about Clara Nell, Dalia's daughter, who completely embodies the spirit of her willful mother. I don't want to give away too much, but the languid pacing of this family's triumphs and tragedies make for a surprisingly fast read. Cousin Juliet particularly intrigued me, mentioned but not introduced until Clara Nell's life account. Dalia's life progresses, prospers, blossoms, withers, declines, and rebuilds under the spellbinding prose of author Gwyn Hyman Rubio. Not one moment is left dull under the vivid canvas of her words. This is truly a beautiful book in all aspects: languid, interesting, suspenseful, tragic, uplifting, and filled with fully fleshed out characters that you will either love or hate ... and often pity. I highly recommend this book. Enjoy!

While it is true that The Woodsman's Daughter is a story of women struggling against the oppressions of late-19th/early 20th century South Georgia society--and a covincing one, making us feel the effects of that oppression in nearly every aspect of these women's lives--it is far more nuanced and complex a novel than such a description suggests. Rubio never reduces her characters to simple victims and oppressors. "Power, pure power," Dalia says, observing the beauty of her own body in the mirror. And it is. She has power over men's reputations, men's hearts, and men's ideas of themselves. With a near Flaubertian refusal to romanticize, Rubio allows her characters the ignorance that inevitably leads to such power's abuse. Male sensitivity is regarded as weakness, and male weakness is deplorable (Rubio makes female disgust palpable with her prose): it is a mistake, as Anais Nin once wrote, that nearly doomed our culture. The tragedy it brings upon these characters feels inevitable. Men--fathers, husbands, sons--who are too broad-spirited to fit the increasingly narrow ideals of what a man should be are cast into the shadows, where they remain like invisible presences, loving but mostly unloved, while the charlatans take the spotlight and abuse their position with increasingly cruelty. One feels especially for Monroe, who is both charlatan and man, and whose dilemma seems everyman's, as what drives his wife and children away from him seems not only the excesses of work or alcohol or sex, nor even the disease (blown up into all the proportions of Sin, as it is sexual) with which he afflicts them, but the audacity and drive from which these flaws result, and without which he too might very well have remained half-invisible shadow, unnoticed and unloved. The concluding reconciliation makes one wish that these people, women and men alike, had had more courage to empathize--a courage that this novel seeks to give.

I found The Woodsman's Daughter to be a work of deep understanding of the conflicts and conditions that threaten our lives. Rubio is both insightful and understanding of the advocacy of the issues that break people's hearts such as abortion, marriage and the family. Dahlia's trials of childhood neglect, sisterly love and her lifetime of hard choices and heartbreaking moments all made for a most believable and absorbing read. The tribulations of lifetimes of hard living left Monroe, Dahlia and Clara Nell with unresolved wounds that were often inflicted on others as well as themselves. The characters struggled but faced the tensions of their lives in familiar and often dangerous ways. Thank you Ms Rubio and I look forward to more afternoons of pure enchantment with another of your novels.

Just what you want in a novel -- big characters, dramatic action, love, hatred -- The Woodsman's Daughter has it all. The story encompasses generations and catches you up from the first sentence. You'll marvel at the details describing life in post-Civil War Georgia as well as the depth of feeling bringing the characters to life. If you're looking for a great novel -- this is it.

Ms. Rubio has outdone herself. I enjoyed "Icy Sparks" very much but it was a fast and hilarious read with lots of heart. This novel has to be read slowly to appreaciate its tightly woven themes and its rich language. One is there with Dalia every step of the way as she courageously lives her flawed life--your mind may be ambivalent about her decisions but you heart is always rooting for her. Exquisite!