Title: Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera
Publisher: Park Row
Genre: Historical (1920s), Literary Fiction
Length: 352 pages
Book Rating: B+
Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley
Summary:
A stunning tour de force following three fierce, unforgettable Southern women in the years leading up to the Great Depression
It’s 1924 South Carolina and the region is still recovering from the infamous boll weevil infestation that devastated the land and the economy. Gertrude, a mother of four, must make an unconscionable decision to save her daughters from starvation or die at the hands of an abusive husband. Retta is navigating a harsh world as a first-generation freed slave, still employed by the Coles, influential plantation proprietors who once owned her family. Annie is the matriarch of the Coles family and must come to terms with the terrible truth that has ripped her family apart.
These three women seemingly have nothing in common, yet as they unite to stand up to the terrible injustices that have long plagued the small town, they find strength in the bond that ties women together. Told in the pitch-perfect voices of Gertrude, Retta and Annie, Call Your Daughter Home is an audacious, timeless story about the power of family, deep-buried secrets and the ferocity of motherhood.
Review:
Set in South Carolina in 1924, Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera is a captivating novel about three disparate women whose lives are about to intersect.
Gertrude Pardee is poverty stricken and stuck in an abusive marriage with an alcoholic, violent man. She is worried about their four daughters, two of whom she left in care of her beloved brother, Berns and his wife Marie. The younger two live with Gertrude and her husband Alvin deep in the Carolina swamp where they live side by side with alligators and other predators. When the opportunity to work in wealthy plantation owner Annie Coles’ Sewing Circle presents itself, Gertrude makes sure nothing impedes her upcoming employment and reunion with all of her daughters.
Annie and her son, Lonnie, are partners in their Sewing Circle business which has managed to thrive despite the devastating boll weevil infestation. Their business currently produces flour sacks but Lonnie’s hard work is about to pay dividends when a Charleston department store agrees to carry the men’s shirts he has designed. But not all is right in Annie’s world due to her fifteen year estrangement with her daughters, Sarah and Molly. Realizing time is growing short to make peace with them, Annie makes an overture she hopes will bring them back into her life. But it is not until she makes a shocking and horrifying discovery that Annie fully understand the reasons for her family’s tragedies.
Oretta “Retta” Bottles is a first generation freed slave who works for the Coles’ family. Retta is married to Odell, who remains the love of her life in spite of their misfortune and heartbreaking losses. Retta’s path crosses the Pardee family when Gertrude leaves her youngest daughter in her care while she wrenches free of her husband. They are also unlikely neighbors after Gertrude begins working at the Sewing Circle. Retta is a wise and gentle woman who is privy to the Coles’ family secrets.
Told through alternating voices, Call Your Daughter Home is an insightful novel that whisks readers back to a dark and troubling time in American history. Each of the women is vibrantly developed and despite their flaws, their strength is what defines them. Deb Spera vividly brings the time period and the women’s strife and struggles vividly to life in this thought-provoking novel. An absolutely riveting debut that I found impossible to put down and highly recommend.
