|
Johnson to share The Air Between Us at Lunch with Books |
|
Sunday, 16 March 2008 |
For lovers of The Secret Life of Bees comes a compulsively readable novel, filled with colorful, engaging characters, set in a small Mississippi town as it struggles with integration in the 1960s. In THE AIR BETWEEN US (Amistad/HarperCollins; January 2008; ISBN: 0061255572; $23.95) by Deborah Johnson, readers will be introduced to the diverse, yet segregated residents of Revere with its population of “20,000 and sinking”. Black people live on one side of town and whites on the other. Dr. Reese Jackson, the esteemed African American surgeon, and his sophisticated wife, Deanie, have an elite life largely unlike that of most of their neighbors. On the other side of town, there’s Dr. Cooper Connelly, the well-known and highly regarded son of a prominent politician and the town’s leading citizen who is staunchly – and publicly - against integration.
There is very little to bring Dr. Connelly and Dr. Jackson, or this town filled with mysteriously hidden secrets, together -or so everyone would believe. But when the sheriff calls for an investigation after a white man dies suspiciously on Dr. Connelly’s operating table, following an injury which at first appears to be the result of a typical hunting accident, the connections between white and black are revealed to be deeper than anyone expected. Still, in the midst of the town’s drama is the racially ambiguous and keenly observant Melba Obrenski, a woman with a checkered, largely unknown past who intriguingly has ties to both sides of the town and can bring Revere to its knees with all that she’s discovered.
Also intriguing to the core of this story is the practice of “ghost surgery”, traditionally defined as a surgeon performing surgery on another surgeon’s patient, as arranged by the patient’s surgeon, but without the patient’s being aware. “Ghost surgery is much more than a concept to me. It was part of my family’s folklore. I grew up with a father who was a ghost surgeon,” says author Deborah Johnson. “As a gifted African American surgeon in Nebraska who maintained his own very full practice, my father was often called into perform surgical procedures on white patients. The patients go under seeing their doctor and wake up seeing their doctor, but it was my father who performed the surgery that many times saved their lives. Although ghost surgery is more of a historical reference at this point, few people are even aware that it ever took place. So, I decided it would be both informative and entertaining to make ghost surgery the centerpiece of my novel.” With endearing, fully realized characters, THE AIR BETWEEN US is a satisfying, suspenseful novel that will keep readers guessing until the very last page.
Deborah Johnson is currently the Executive Director of the Colom Foundation in Columbus, Mississippi. Johnson has formerly worked for Vatican Radio in Rome and has previously published four historical romances, under the pseudonym Deborah Johns.
|
|
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 19 March 2008 )
|
