Awards
Finalist for the 1998 National Book Award
Synopses & Reviews
Harlan Jane Eagleton is a faith healer, traveling by bus to small towns, converting skeptics, restoring minds and bodies. But before that she was a minor rock star's manager, and before that a beautician. She's had a fling with her rock star's ex-husband and an Afro-German horse dealer; along the way she's somehow lost her own husband, a medical anthropologist now traveling with a medicine woman in Africa. Harlan tells her story from the end backwards, drawing us constantly deeper into her world and the mystery at the heart of her tale — the story of her first healing. The Healing is a lyrical and at times humorous exploration of the struggle to let go of pain, anger, and even love. Slipping seamlessly back through Harlan's memories in a language rich with the textured cadences of the black Southerner, Gayl Jones weaves her story to its dramatic — and unexpected — beginning.
Review
"[The Healing] is a book about extraordinary powers and the needs of the ordinary self....In the end, the healing is revealed as an inclusive gradual process of understanding what your own self hopes for a long journey from the mended chest wound to the satisfied heart." Elizabeth Schmidt, The Boston Phoenix
Review
"...the arrival next week of Jones's new novel, The Healing, is a major literary event....Surprising, romantic and wholly satisfying....Fans of Gayl Jones have waited a long time to hear from her. They will not be disappointed. The Healing is all it promises to be." Veronica Chambers, Newsweek
Review
"The Healing is a tale told backward, unfolding with an offhand seductiveness that leaves the reader breathless. The command of language is spectacular, as is the breadth of knowledge and allusions casually tossed into Harlan's tale....so rich it is difficult to put down." The Nation, Jill Nelson
Review
"...brilliant third novel, a story of forgiveness, optimism and love....Jones' complex novel ultimately holds out the possibility of redemption." The San Francisco Chronicle, Linda Raymond
Review
"Jones' first novel since Eva's Woman (1975) is the only original novel published by Beacon in its almost 150-year history, and quite a book it is. The experiences of a diverse group of characters are used to explore issues facing black women in contemporary America....Jones has peopled her novel with strong and original women....[and] has a wonderful ear for dialogue...." Nancy Pearl, Booklist
Review
"An American writer with a powerful sense of vital inheritance, of history in the blood." John Updike, The New Yorker
Review
"Prickly, frequently tendentious and occasionally brilliant. From the opening pages we know we're in the presence of a masterly writer whose life experiences have sharpened her edges rather than softened them....It is through her flawed but gravely human voice that Jones' flinty work is quietly redeemed." Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Gayl Jones was born in Kentucky in 1949. She attended Connecticut College and Brown University; she has taught at Wellesley and the University of Michigan. Her books include Corregidora, Eva's Man, White Rat, Song for Anninho, and Liberating Voices: Oral Tradition in African American Literature.