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Title: The Sparrow Sisters by Ellen Herrick
Details: Copyright 2015, HarperCollins
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "The Sparrow Sisters are as tightly woven into the seaside New England town of Granite Point as the wild sweet peas that climb the stone walls along the harbor. Sorrel, Nettie and Patience are as colorful as the beach plums on the dunes and as mysterious as the fog that rolls into town at dusk.
When a new doctor settles into Granite Point, he brings with him a mystery so compelling that town healer Patience is drawn to love him, even as she struggles to mend him. But when Patience Sparrow’s herbs and tinctures are believed to be implicated in a local tragedy, Granite Point is consumed by a long-buried fear— and its three hundred-year-old history resurfaces as a modern day witch-hunt threatens. The plants and flowers, fruit trees and high hedges begin to wither and die, and the entire town begins to fail; fishermen return to the harbor empty-handed, and blight descends on the old elms that line the lanes.
It seems as if Patience and her town are lost until the women of Granite Point band together to save the Sparrows. As they gather, drawing strength from each other, will they be able to turn the tide and return life to Granite Point?"
Why I Wanted to Read It: The past two years have been years for books about Witches! Real ones, fantasy ones, and the Witch-adjacent. I ran across this (with a very different description than it reads on the back cover) and it looked like it might be interesting.
How I Liked It:
It's very easy to think writing is easy. Especially when it comes to fiction, because it's all made up anyway, isn't it? The best writers make it look easy, and can inspire us to try our own hand at creating a universe. But it's actually a long, long process and a long, long road from the author's first rough draft until the published book. Even for the most prolific and talented of authors, it's an arduous, involved journey and you can be sure the rough draft bore little resemblance to the book that just engaged you so completely. I've known this for years, since I was a child and first tried my own hand at writing and learning how to write (and had that rude awakening many times). It's easy to forget when you read staggering books, though, and the long process of writing is something I'm reminded of from time to time writing myself. However, it came to mind when I read this book.
Before we get into that, though, let's meet the Sparrow Sisters! There's now just three (all have plant names) now that Marigold, twin of Sorrel, the oldest (although Marigold was technically older than Sorrel by seven minutes) died of cancer. Their father died before that, and their mother long before that, so that leaves the three Sparrow sisters, Sorrel, Nettie, and Patience, and their nursery. And their reputation in their small New England town for herb cures, thanks to Patience, the youngest.
A hunky new doctor, an Iraq war vet with trauma, blows into town and ruffles Patience's feathers and the least surprising thing ever, the two start a fling. Complicating things is the fact Matty, a severely autistic and even more severely neglected child, helps out Patience at the nursery, since his father, distraught over the death of his wife (Matty's mother), can't be relied upon for anything.
Turns out foxglove (a poisonous plant) and kids don't mix and also, Patience was treating Matty for his autism with herbs, something her new doctor boyfriend had just gotten her to give up doing when Matty dies suddenly. Just as suddenly, Patience and her herbs go on trial (not for Witchcraft, but for criminal negligence) both literally and figuratively. In his compounded grief, Matty's father blames Patience for his son's death and the town (especially the men) turn on Patience and the Sparrows. Their nursery is trashed and Patience is arrested. Things suddenly start going poorly with the town (especially with strange weather) and resident women (and a few men) band together to save Patience.
A hidden piece of exonerating evidence is revealed, and Patience is freed and the town as well as the Sparrows slowly begin to heal from the death and aftermath. Middle sister Nettie is busy with her new boyfriend, a fisherman in town to whom she's gotten close, Patience and her doctor have each other, and as for the oldest sister Sorrel, the author ends the book promising (with ellipsis) that that's a story for another time.
I've thought about the unfinished and half-done qualities of books before, to varying enjoyment on the part of the reader. But it's been awhile I've seen a book I was honestly somewhat surprised made it this far into publishing when it's this unfinished-seeming. The Sparrow Sisters that title the book are barely not interchangeable as characters. Character development is barely existent when it isn't being spoonfed directly to the reader, almost as a placeholder for what the author intended to write later. The book has numerous sweeping settings, but we feel none of them. The dialog rankles, the situations are almost hilariously rote and even stereotyped, and even someone on trial for the death of a child is barely enough to move the plot. Cartoon cruelty (a term I use to mean the narrative tool of subjecting a character to over-the-top, unreasonably cruel behavior from other characters to cheaply illicit sympathy) is somehow even more ridiculous here; it's practically a cartoon of a cartoon.
The evil prosecuting attorney isn't trying to avenge the death of a child, but instead is only interested in his career and how this case will help it, something we learn when it goes south for him and things start turning around for Patience:
That's it, he thought, I've lost the edge here. There'll be no call to indict Patience Sparrow now. I won't be riding any of this to a bigger, better place. (pg 322)
The character literally thought that last sentence in his head and thoughtfully verbalized it for us. And while that's a more extreme example from the book, it's not that out there from the way the author gives the motivations of other characters. In his excellent book on writing cum memoir, Stephen King notes that no side character ever thinks of themselves as a side character (they're the main character in their own story) and it's important to write characters that way. What then of characters that barely see themselves as characters, based on the way the author wrote them?
There is the start of a good book deep, deep, deep within here. There's a great, if slightly derivative premise (strange sisters from a New England town from whom the town seeks help, I've heard that somewhere...) that needed to be fleshed out, along with the characters, and the setting, including events which should've registered wonder (the magical realism of the town failing its residents when they fail one of their own) only barely register at all. That fleshing out and finishing and polish though, is not what happened and the reader is the lesser for it on every level.
It's very easy to think writing is easy. Bad writing can sometimes be the reminder of how much work it truly takes and how much effort went into the books that made you think writing was so simple.
Notable: Clumsy descriptions ahoy! This one is particularly memorable:
Patience stood at the end of the bar, an old hoodie over her tee shirt. The stretched hem came to the middle of her thighs; she looked naked beneath it, but her dirty boots and slouchy socks dismissed that image with an oddly childish look. (pg 21)
Um... I'm fairly sure the author intended "she looked naked beneath it, but her dirty boots and slouchy socks dismissed any salaciousness with an oddly childish look."
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I originally thought this book was historical fiction, but it's set in the present day, which given its creepiness about gender makes things all the stranger in places.
Patience is obviously taken by Hunky Doctor but doesn't want to show it to her sisters, and (of course) denies any attraction.
"He didn't do it for me. His jaw's horribly square, and his eyelashes are way too long for a guy."
"Ha!" Nettie said, pointing to Patience. "You saw the lashes too!"
"Please, no man needs lashes like that." (pg 38)
THERE IS A REASONABLE LENGTH ALLOWED FOR MEN'S EYELASHES AND YOU MUST NOT EXCEED IT.
"No marriages, no children, none of them?" he asked and lowered his head to avoid Sally's curious gaze.
"No, I mean it's not like they're old maids or anything; they just kind of keep themselves to themselves. You've seen them," she added and circled her hand around her face. "They're hardly dogs." (pg 44)
"Old maids" in 2015? Seriously? When's the last time you heard anyone actually say that? And women are presumed unattractive if they don't marry or have children? There are surely easier, less creepy ways to communicate your characters are conventionally attractive.
She left her fingers linger for a moment against him, the crisp cotton of his shirt wilted by the heat. Beneath the doctor smell she could detect fresh water, wood, and man. (pg 88)
"Man" must smell like "appropriate length eyelashes."
"Are you afraid I'll put a spell on you?" Patience tried to keep the hurt out of her voice.
"No, I don't want you to feel sorry for me. You've no idea how emasculating it is to be the object of pity." Henry stood. (pg 96)
"Emasculating"? Really? Isn't pity usually an unpleasant feeling for anyone? Why on earth did the author feel she had to go there? It has nothing to do with the character (who probably nervously checks the length of his eyelashes).
Most of the women stood up for themselves and for Patience, and they all hid their remedies where they knew the men would never look: in the linen closet, at the bottom of the laundry hamper, behind packets and canned goods in their pantries, in the glove box of the family minivan. (pg 280)
Does domestic labor still unfortunately fall resoundingly to women and femmes? Absolutely. Should we be trying to stop that, to challenge it, to stop having this all fall on women/femmes alone? Absolutely. And we need less of this cutesy "Those lovable clueless lugs, not participating in housework or child care, how adorable, that's men folk for you!" sentiment.
The idea of that which is relegated to women being a useful hiding space better authors have pulled off more effectively, as in at all.
In court, Patience gets support from many women in town.
"Hey, where were you?" Emily asked.
"I couldn't take it anymore," Ben said. "Besides, it was nearly all women in there."
"Yeah, that's pretty weird. I guess Patience's got real girl power." (pg 357)
You seriously couldn't be in a room that's predominantly women? And, uh, that's treated as normal?
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They would have a stilted conversation about their days, and Rob would grimace as Matty recited the list of plants and their uses. Neither would see that Matty found the very same comfort at the Nursery that Rob found at the store. (pg 69)
Credit where credit is due, in writing the autistic child Matty and his father, there's a suggestion that his father also has autism. Many still don't realize autism is hereditary and is a spectrum and a little nod like that goes a long way.
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I'm reading this for the witches. So despite it being sold in various places as about witches, it's obviously not, although there's still a hint here and there, given Patience's miraculous work with herbs. I've mentioned about how with greater general public awareness about real life Witchcraft, the fantasy version sometimes resembles it and why that's troublesome. This book is no exception.
The case was far from airtight. He could blame Rob Short for starting it with his stink, and he did. Then the damn video, and the shit spread around about a town that let some delusional Wiccan wannabe get away with murder. (pgs 245 and 246)
Watching a protest against Patience unfold leaves some strange thoughts.
Rob Short stood at his kitchen window watching the church group disband. They left behind their placards and signs that had less to do with Christian kindness and more to do with some kind of anti-pagan crusade. (pg 274)
But is it anti-Pagan or is it anti-what-they-think-is-the-devil, or is that interchangeable for them? Again, sloppy writing.
Final Grade: Minus the truly weird gender politics, C-
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