Conjure Women (Barnes & Noble Book Club Edition)

by Afia Atakora

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

A multigenerational, powerful debut that takes place during the mid-19th century on a plantation. The story revolves around Miss May Belle (a healer), her daughter Rue, and Varina (the daughter of the plantation owner) and illustrates the trials and tribulations of the women both before and after the Civil War. A riveting, raw look at healing, secrets, slavery and love, it also conjures a beautifully pitch-perfect ending.

This Barnes & Noble Book Club Edition includes a personal essay from Afia Atakora, as well as a discussion guide.

A mother and daughter with a shared talent for healing—and for the conjuring of curses—are at the heart of this dazzling first novel

“Lush, irresistible…It took me into the hearts of women I could otherwise never know. I was transported.”—Amy Bloom, New York Times bestselling author of White Houses and Away

Conjure Women is a sweeping story that brings the world of the South before and after the Civil War vividly to life. Spanning eras and generations, it tells of the lives of three unforgettable women: Miss May Belle, a wise healing woman; her precocious and observant daughter Rue, who is reluctant to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a midwife; and their master’s daughter Varina. The secrets and bonds among these women and their community come to a head at the beginning of a war and at the birth of an accursed child, who sets the townspeople alight with fear and a spreading superstition that threatens their newly won, tenuous freedom.

Magnificently written, brilliantly researched, richly imagined, Conjure Women moves back and forth in time to tell the haunting story of Rue, Varina, and May Belle, their passions and friendships, and the lengths they will go to save themselves and those they love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593230336
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/07/2020
Edition description:	Barnes & Noble Book Club Edition
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	239,104
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Afia Atakora was born in the United Kingdom and raised in New Jersey, where she now lives. She graduated from New York University and has an MFA from Columbia University, where she was the recipient of the De Alba Fellowship. Her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and she was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers.

Editorial Reviews

…[a] satisfyingly spooky first novel…Cleverly ricocheting her chapters between the 1850s and the 1860s, Atakora shows how the legacy of bondage is played out in the aftermath of war.

The New York Times Book Review - Alida Becker

Afia Atakora brings the Civil War South to life so beautifully with Conjure Women, a heartbreaking joy to read.”—Martha Hall Kelly, New York Times bestselling author of Lilac Girls

“If you are grieving for Toni Morrison, Afia Atakora is the young writer to read now: the kind of historical novelist who makes you believe she must have somehow seen the places she describes and known these characters herself. Her astonishing debut takes the reader to a Reconstruction-era Southern plantation, where two little girls—the enslaved child of the local healer and the planter’s cloistered daughter—become unlikely friends. Conjure Women illuminates an unfamiliar corner of Civil War history and brings to life an indelible character whose talents, from midwifery to voodoo, will yield her own unconventional path to power and freedom.”—Nell Freudenberger, author of Lost and Wanted
 
“This novel, written in lush, irresistible, and poetic prose, took me into the lives of people in another time and place—into their loves, nightmares, dreams, their unexpected ties—and into the hearts of women I could otherwise never know. I was transported.”—Amy Bloom, New York Times bestselling author of White Houses
 
“In Conjure Women Afia Atakora masterfully centers two generations of women, folk healers who carry the secrets of their community while bearing the brunt of its antebellum past and its reconstructed present. Telling a gripping story at once grand and intimate, Atakora renders humanity in all its beautiful fits and flaws. Page after page, her voice announces itself like a thunderclap. The women in this novel will blessedly stick with you long after the last word has been read.” —Caleb Johnson, author of Treeborne

From the Publisher

★ 12/01/2019

DEBUT Deftly interwoven and emotionally involving, Atakora's accomplished debut moves among several eras. There's slaverytime, when Miss May Belle serves as both healer and conjurer of curses on the plantation of Marse Charles as she teaches daughter Rue her ways. There's wartime, when Union soldiers march in and Varina, the hapless but demanding daughter of the master and a childhood playmate to Rue, suffers multiple losses. And there's freedomtime, when Miss Rue, now midwife/healer to the old plantation's community of freedmen, is suspected of witchcraft, though she says she's "just a woman who knows some things." Rue feels an uncanny affinity for a difficult baby she has delivered, a baby that could be her punishment or her salvation if only she plans things correctly, and she has an equally complicated relationship with preacher Bruh Abel, whom she thinks of as a sham even as he tries to turn her from her conjuring ways. Meanwhile, a secret she hides deep in the woods drives the narrative forward. VERDICT Atakora effectively handles the before-during-and-after structure, enriching her story. If its center is the vibrant Rue, the entire community finally feels like the main character. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 9/9/19.]—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Library Journal