The Passing Storm: A Novel by Christine Nolfi

 

"Secrets were corrosive, especially when they were bottled up for too long. Rae knew this from bitter experience---her own secrets had weakened her relationship with her late daughter and tested her father's love and his patience as he reluctantly learned to live with them."

       -from the novel

A novel I selected from  Amazon First Reads, The Passing Storm was quite good. There was enough mystery to keep me engaged and even a hint of romance toward the end. I rated it a 3.

Rae Langdon lives on a 40-acre farm in Ohio with her aging father. It is getting harder and harder to maintain the property, particularly when they are both grieving the loss of Rae's mother and teenage daughter, Lark. Both family members were victims of seemingly freak accidents. In fact, the reader does not know much detail about Lark's death for quite a while.

Quinn Galecki is a teenage boy, close friend of the deceased Lark, who has neglectful and abusive parents. He is offered refuge by the Langdons, much to the displeasure of his father when he finds out. 

As intimated by Rae in the quote above, the story is built around several corrosive secrets---her own and others, including Quinn. These are revealed gradually as the plot progresses.

A Conspiracy of Mothers by Colleen Van Niekerk

 ""A tremor had always run beneath the surface of their family. With all the ills they'd suffered, she had simply assumed it was the result of hardship. Instead, everything they were, everything she had become, rested upon a conspiracy of mothers."                 -Ingrid's thoughts, from the novel

I chose this title as my free book for September because the setting of South Africa was one I haven't experienced and I can certainly identify with mothers, since I am one. The plot sounded pretty interesting and the small number of ratings were good. I will be generous in rating it a 3 because I didn't enjoy it all that much. There were things to like about the novel but too much magic realism, a literary element I am easily confused by and don't really enjoy.

As I mentioned the setting is South Africa, 1994, with much of apartheid still rearing its ugly head and the first democratic election looming. The plot involves 3 mothers---Rachel, who is dying of cancer; Yolanda, her daughter and mother of Ingrid, quoted above; and Elsa, mother of Yolanda's former white lover, Stefan. Each of the mothers plus Ingrid and a hired hit man narrate alternating chapters, giving multiple perspectives to the story. 

Yolanda, an artist suffering from PTSD and living in Virginia, has been estranged from her family for years. In South Africa, Rachel has raised her granddaughter, Ingrid, who has long thought her parents were dead. Yolanda "hears" her mother calling and returns to her homeland, only to find both Rachel and Ingrid missing. The only conspiracy that I really understood was that of Elsa, going to extreme measures to protect her son, the unlawful father of Ingrid. (It was illegal for races to mix.) I must admit those efforts made for the more exciting parts of the book.