Not Necessarily New

I just finished listening to The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker, read by Carrington MacDuffie.  I don’t know why it took me so long to get around to this book – it was published in 2009 – but it was an absolute gem.  I loved the story, the characters, the author’s writing style, the narrator of the audio book – I just plain loved the book.

Tiffany Baker sets her book in the small town of Aberdeen in Aberdeen County, New York. The narrator and heroine of the novel is Truly Plaice, a woman who may be a giant in size due to a pituitary gland condition but whose spirit is even larger. Truly plays many roles – naturopathic healer, mercy killer, loyal friend, loving aunt and sister.

But Truly’s start in life is tragic; her mother dies giving birth to her, murmuring the words “yours truly” that name her motherless daughter. Truly’s father blames her for her mother’s death, and he feels inadequate for the task of raising her and her older sister Serena Jane, Truly’s opposite in her doll-like perfection.  When their father dies, Truly and Serena Jane are separated. Truly goes to live on the down-on-their-luck Dyersons’ horse farm, and Serena Jane goes to live with a wealthy family in town. Truly comes to love the farm and to regard Amelia Dyerson as her sister.

Meanwhile Serena Jane’s beauty proves to be her undoing as classmate Bob Bob Morgan, the youngest in a long line of Robert Morgans who have been the doctors in Aberdeen, becomes obsessed with her. The Morgans are now part of the town elite, but the first Robert Morgan ended up in Aberdeen when he deserted the army during the Civil War, marrying the town witch, Tabitha Dyerson. The Morgan family has been searching for her shadow book, containing all her healing potions and darker spells, ever since Tabby’s death.

When Serena Jane runs away from Aberdeen and her loveless marriage to Bob Bob, Truly takes over for her as housekeeper and mother to her eight-year-old nephew, Bobbie. Robert Morgan does his best to torment and degrade Truly while she lives under his roof, but then Truly discovers Tabitha’s healing secrets.  For the first time, Truly has power, a power she wields with both mercy and passion, qualities she has seldom been shown. But exposing family secrets brings a sort of betrayal that will break apart the Morgans with consequences for Truly, allowing her to confront her own dark places and possibly find love with her childhood sweetheart, Marcus, who has come to his own terms with life and death through his experiences during the Viet Nam War.

Baker’s writing is so descriptive, so evocative that it makes you feel as if you are in the story, experiencing the feelings of the characters. Writing about Serena Jane leaving Bobbie behind, Baker says:  “She never understood that love - especially that of a child - was the most necessary weight you can endure in life, even if it hurts, even if it tugs bags under the skin of your eyes. Without it, the soul skitters to the edge of the world and teeters there, confused.”  I can’t get enough of the way she writes.

I highly recommend The Little Giant of Aberdeen County for book clubs. I can imagine lively discussions springing from Tiffany Baker’s skillful interweaving of Truly’s life story with the themes of love and loyalty, revenge and forgiveness, family, death, and the importance of physical appearance in defining someone’s life. You could almost view the novel as a contemporary fairy tale:  Serena Jane as the beautiful princess, Truly as the witch or Cinderella, Robert Morgan as the evil wizard, and Marcus as the valiant hero/prince.  

If you read The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker and enjoy it, you might also enjoy reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman.

Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob Jankowski who meets the love of his life in the circus. In 1931 veterinary student Jacob’s world comes crashing down when his parents die in a car accident. Broke and broken hearted, Jacob joins the circus and falls for Marlena, a married circus star, and becomes the caretaker of Rosie the elephant, the other half of her act. Like Truly’s brother-in-law Robert Morgan, Marlena’s husband August is a cruel man, mistreating animals and people alike in the circus. Sara Gruen also addresses the themes of love, loyalty, family, revenge, passion, and mercy but in a different way than Tiffany Baker. If you have never read this book club favorite, it is time you did. 

Practical Magic is one of my favorite books by Alice Hoffman. Sally and Gillian Owens are orphaned and raised by their unusual aunts, cruelly teased by the other children. The aunts cast spells at twilight for women having problems with love. Gillian leaves home as soon as possible, breaking hearts along the way. Sensible Sally stays, marries, and has two daughters, until tragedy sends her packing, too. Now a catastrophic event has gathered the Owens women together again. Sally and Gillian, like Truly and Tabitha, have a talent as naturopathic healers or witches. But it is the love they share as sisters, a love shared by Truly and Serena Jane and Truly and Amelia, that really binds them together in this tale of the magic of love, healing, and family. No one can write magical realism like Alice Hoffman, and Practical Magic is one of her finest books. 

All of these books are older titles, just proving that book club picks don’t have to be new to be hot.