The Rhythm of Secrets by Patti Lacy
January 31, 2011 by Kregel
Paperback, 336 Pages
Review Copy
Since 1955, Sheila Franklin, a talented musician, has perfectly performed the role of devout pastor’s wife, locking away her past as Sheba Alexander and Sylvia Allen. Her carefully constructed façade crumbles with a single phone call from a young Marine named Samuel, the illegitimate son she secretly put up for adoption. Samuel begs Sheila to use her government contacts to get his fiancé, Mali, a Thai prostitute, into America. A dangerous mixture of love and guilt spurs her to help her only child even though it devastates her husband Edward and exposes her questionable past. After a quarrel with Edward, Sheila and Samuel board a C-130 for Thailand and then search Bangkok’s steamy streets for a Madonna-faced prostitute. The two whisk Mali from a brothel but are seized by a warlord who considers Mali his “number one girl.” In a teak “ghost house,” Sheila discovers God’s grace and gains the freedom she needs to find her own identity—Sheila, Sylvia, and Sheba. A framed story, this novel has roots in the bohemian 1940s New Orleans French Quarter and spans three decades, including the turbulent Vietnam era.
Review
Sheila is a woman who has obediently stood by her husbands side, enduring criticisms from her church, bending over backwards to do all the pastor wife things that are required of her and squashing the musical soul that haunts her daily. Everything in Sheila’s life comes to an abrupt halt over a phone conversation one gloomy afternoon. The semblance and life she’s been so quietly living only takes a few days to completely rip apart and the mask of her current self- Sheila- is washed asunder when the voice of her long ago lost son speaks her name. In an attempt to help Samuel her past must come out and not only to her son but also her husband who never knew about him or Sheila’s tragic history.
Traveling back in time Sheila takes us on a journey to her childhood where she was known as Sheba, in the early 1940’s where New Orleans was bursting with smoky jazz music and her parents lived a not so graceful lifestyle. Although the family is drenched in Orleans sultry musical atmosphere, her mother is mysterious and lives behind secrets of shame while her father works for the mob, gambling away his money and dipping into the boss’s share which eventually brings trouble upon the family, so tragic the outcome that Sheba winds up living with her racist overbearing grandmother. During this time as a young girl into her late teens, her name is changed to Sheila and loneliness and legalism become a way of life. Desperate for attention and love the summer over her seventeenth year she is sweet talked and seduced by a WWII soldier named Cliff. A few months pass with no word from him and she knows deep down that it was a summer fling…the only thing left to show for the heated romance is the baby growing inside her. After Sheila informs her grandmother of the pregnancy, life again changes drastically as she is sent north to have her baby. For Sheila the road is laced with troubles, sorrow, anger and hiding from who she really is, after the loss of her baby, the loss of her family, a lonely and bitter mask remains. But God does not leave Sheila without an anchor and hope shimmers in the years to come with one redeeming adventure that will change her and the others surrounding her forever.
I’m so blown away by the boldness and sheer poignant writing in this novel. The background, the history, the raw honesty of racism in the 40’s and the harsh reality of prostitution was done with grace and absolute beauty. I felt myself being pulled into Sheila’s life and overwhelmed by her story. I defiantly think Ms. Lacy broke through some boundaries in inspirational fiction and gave us a book where most of the characters are in the darkest pit of what you imagine sin to be. Instead of sugar coating the events or masking lines with gosh and golly, the hurts, the thoughts, the betrayals and the words are spoken real and harsh. The story also shows how Gods grace reaches out to the desperate and the hopeless and how that grace redeems even the most horrible of situations. I will be forever moved by this powerful and fiercely touching story.
Sheila is a woman who has obediently stood by her husbands side, enduring criticisms from her church, bending over backwards to do all the pastor wife things that are required of her and squashing the musical soul that haunts her daily. Everything in Sheila’s life comes to an abrupt halt over a phone conversation one gloomy afternoon. The semblance and life she’s been so quietly living only takes a few days to completely rip apart and the mask of her current self- Sheila- is washed asunder when the voice of her long ago lost son speaks her name. In an attempt to help Samuel her past must come out and not only to her son but also her husband who never knew about him or Sheila’s tragic history.
Traveling back in time Sheila takes us on a journey to her childhood where she was known as Sheba, in the early 1940’s where New Orleans was bursting with smoky jazz music and her parents lived a not so graceful lifestyle. Although the family is drenched in Orleans sultry musical atmosphere, her mother is mysterious and lives behind secrets of shame while her father works for the mob, gambling away his money and dipping into the boss’s share which eventually brings trouble upon the family, so tragic the outcome that Sheba winds up living with her racist overbearing grandmother. During this time as a young girl into her late teens, her name is changed to Sheila and loneliness and legalism become a way of life. Desperate for attention and love the summer over her seventeenth year she is sweet talked and seduced by a WWII soldier named Cliff. A few months pass with no word from him and she knows deep down that it was a summer fling…the only thing left to show for the heated romance is the baby growing inside her. After Sheila informs her grandmother of the pregnancy, life again changes drastically as she is sent north to have her baby. For Sheila the road is laced with troubles, sorrow, anger and hiding from who she really is, after the loss of her baby, the loss of her family, a lonely and bitter mask remains. But God does not leave Sheila without an anchor and hope shimmers in the years to come with one redeeming adventure that will change her and the others surrounding her forever.
I’m so blown away by the boldness and sheer poignant writing in this novel. The background, the history, the raw honesty of racism in the 40’s and the harsh reality of prostitution was done with grace and absolute beauty. I felt myself being pulled into Sheila’s life and overwhelmed by her story. I defiantly think Ms. Lacy broke through some boundaries in inspirational fiction and gave us a book where most of the characters are in the darkest pit of what you imagine sin to be. Instead of sugar coating the events or masking lines with gosh and golly, the hurts, the thoughts, the betrayals and the words are spoken real and harsh. The story also shows how Gods grace reaches out to the desperate and the hopeless and how that grace redeems even the most horrible of situations. I will be forever moved by this powerful and fiercely touching story.
Her limbs trembled, released from the throes of death, so she just sat there in the mud, waiting. He had come for her, in ways beyond her wildest dreams.......He pulled her to her feet. Kissed her hair, her neck, as if oblivious to what three days in hell had done to her appearance. God, what had she done to him?...pg.324
Rating
While The Rhythm of Secrets is certainly wrapped in faith and contains a Christian message, the story is open and frank, I would recommend this to adults. Content includes: Prostitution, brothels, drinking, gambling, death, pre-martial sex, sensuality, racial commentaries including racial slurs, violence, music and war.
5/5- Christian Fiction- Contemporary/Historical
Thanks to Kregel for Review Copy and Litfuse.
WINNER
I have a winner for the copy of ROS and she would the lovely Melissa from i swim for oceans Yayyy...Melissa I hope you love it as much as I did!!!
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Great review and sounds like a good book.
ReplyDeleteWow. Sounds moving. Great review. Congrats Melissa!
ReplyDeleteTina, thank you for investing in my book. I write big ladies!!!
ReplyDeleteBlessings for many life-changing reads in 2011.
Patti
Thanks for taking my baby literary third blog! I love the image of the groundhog, but do not think we will be seeing him in white lime-Normal, Illinois, today.
ReplyDeleteYou always seem to find the books most inspiring and interesting. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDelete