The Cicada Tree, a magical Southern Gothic fever dream
I’ve been reading several books selected by the International Pulpwood Queens & Timber Guys Book Club, now that my novel Pause has been chosen as a 2022 title. I was immediately attracted to the gorgeous cover of Robert Gwaltney’s The Cicada Tree, and the story itself is just as enticing. Even though I’m fourth-generation Pacific Northwest on my mom’s side, my daddy was from Georgia, so I guess Southern Gothic must run in my blood. Gwaltney’s compelling story of 11-year-old piano prodigy Analeise is set in 1956 rural Georgia, and the settings and characters ring true echoes from my childhood trips there in the 50s to visit the family farm.
Gwaltney casts a spell with his beautifully lush prose and equally lush descriptions of the settings that come alive in sensory detail. I can feel the mud squishing between Analeise’s bare toes as she dances with her dear friend Etta Mae in the back yard, feel the humid heat, hear the haunting notes of Etta Mae’s songs that summon visions for Analeise. Magical realism permeates the dramatically unfolding events as Analeise meets the wealthy local Mayfield family, whose members possess a supernatural beauty called “The Shine.” Analeise is unable to resist being drawn by that family’s dark manipulations into a spiral of increasingly disturbing and violent events, as a plague of locusts/cicadas invades the town and people start to go unhinged. A final confluence of near-Biblical disasters takes the reader fully into Mayfield madness, but don’t worry, you’ll wake from this beautiful fever dream and be eager to read more by Robert Gwaltney!
*****
You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s latest novel from Book View Café is Pause, a First Place winner of the Chanticleer Somerset Award and an International Pulpwood Queens Book Club selection. “A must-read novel about friendship, love, and killer hot flashes.” (Mindy Klasky). Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com