The Cure for Death by Lightning

"The cure for death by lightning was handwritten in thick, messy blue ink in my mother’s scrapbook, under the recipe for my father’s favourite oatcakes: Dunk the dead by lightning in a cold water bath for two hours and if still dead, add vinegar and soak for an hour more."

So begins Gail Anderson-Dargatz’s extraordinary first novel, a seductive and thrilling book that captures the heart and imagination, as filled with the magic and mystery of life as it is with its lurking evils and gut-wrenching hardships. The Cure for Death by Lightning sold more than a staggering 100,000 copies in Canada alone and became a bestseller in Great Britain, later to be published in the United States and Europe. It was nominated for the Giller Prize, the richest fiction prize in Canada, and received a Betty Trask Award in the U.K.

The Cure for Death by Lightning takes place in the poor, isolated farming community of Turtle Valley, British Columbia, in the shadow of the Second World War. The fifteenth summer of Beth Weeks’s life is full of strange happenings: a classmate is mauled to death; children go missing on the nearby reserve; an unseen predator pursues Beth. She is surrounded by unusual characters, including Nora, the sensual half-Native girl whose friendship provides refuge; Filthy Billy, the hired hand with Tourette’s Syndrome; and Nora’s mother, who has a man’s voice and an extra little finger. Then there’s the darkness within her own family: her domineering, shell-shocked father has fits of madness, and her mother frequently talks to the dead. Beth, meanwhile, must wrestle with her newfound sexuality in a harsh world where nylons, perfume and affection have no place. Then, in a violent storm, she is struck by lightning in her arm, and nothing is quite the same again. She decides to explore the dangers of the bush.

Beth is a strong, honest, and compassionate heroine, bringing hope and joy into an environment that is often cruel. The character of Beth’s haunted mother infuses the book with life by means of her scrapbook of recipes scattered throughout, with luscious descriptions of food, gardening, and remedies, both practical and bizarre. Seen through Beth’s eyes, the West Coast landscape is full of beauty and mysteries, with its forests and rivers, and its rich native culture.

The Globe and Mail commented that The Cure for Death by Lightning was "Canadian to the core," with hints of Susannah Moodie and Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro. Anderson-Dargatz’s vision of rural life has drawn comparisons with William Faulkner and John Steinbeck. A magic realism reminiscent of Latin American literature is also present, as flowers rain from the sky, and men turn into animals. Yet the style of The Cure for Death by Lightning, which the Boston Globe called "Pacific Northwest Gothic," is wholly original. Launched in a year with more than the usual number of excellent first novels (1996 was also the year of Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald and Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels), this book with its assured voice heralds a worthy successor to Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields, Margaret Laurence and Alice Munro.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

From Publishers WeeklyThe year is 1941. For the Weeks family on their frontier farm in Western Canada, life is brutally hard, with moments of joy few and far between. Fifteen-year-old Beth Weeks narrates this coming-of-age story, which is sprinkled with recipes, home remedies and useful homesteading advice (e.g., how to kill and clean a chicken: keep it calm, since "there's nothing as frustrating as trying to kill a panicked chicken"). Though the inventory of authentic period detail is evocative, make no mistake: this is no warmhearted tale of pioneer life. Forget square dances and barn raisings; think bestiality and incest. Beth's tortured, demanding father, mentally ill following a traumatic bear attack and the lingering effects of a head injury he received in WWI, goes on one rampage after another. Beth, meanwhile, does her best to fight off various sexual predators, finding solace of sorts in a tentative love affair with Nora, a troubled half-Indian girl. But Coyote, a sinister shape-changing spirit, stalks them and others, infusing the plot with a weird mystical aura at odds with the hardscrabble realism of the descriptions of day-to-day life. A dysfunctional Little House on the Prairie, this bleak, violent saga is a disturbing mixture of period minutiae and grim supernatural phenomena. (May) FYI: The Cure for Death by Lightning is based on a short story that won the Canadian Broadcasting Company's literary competition in 1993.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library JournalYA?Beth Weeks turns 15 during the early 1940s, when most of the eligible men in rural British Columbia have enlisted. Her older brother remains to help with the farm and to protect her from their father, who received a head injury in World War I and is a violent and unpredictable man. Beth's mother talks aloud, regularly, with her own long-dead mother. Beth comes of age under great obstacles. Her mother refuses to believe her when she tells how other kids torment her, so she stops going to school. She is sexually innocent but instinctively fears her father, and when he rapes her, she withdraws, knowing she can say nothing to her mother. It is her friendship with Bertha Moses, a Native American, and her extended family that sustains her. The community is wrestling with several problems, and it is Bertha who explains that all the bad things that are happening are caused by Coyote, the notorious shape-shifter, who is present, though disguised, and wreaking havoc. The characters are brilliantly portrayed. The writing is spare and powerful: the rape scene is brief and wrenching; the loneliness of Beth and her mother is painful. The writing is wonderful, and the details are just right, but this book is not easy to read. Mature YAs who seek to challenge and stretch their minds will find this a memorable novel.?Judy Sokoll, Fairfax County Public Library, VACopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.