Desert Medicine

 

It was the strong voices of the two protagonists that drew me to Judy Alexander’s debute novel, Desert Medicine. Independent-minded Laurel thinks church would be good for the stability of her five-year-old twins while she goes through what she calls “a marriage transition.” Rhoda Garcia, the cancer patient she agrees to visit to take her mind off her troubles, embraces Laurel and her children and tells deeply moving stories of her childhood in the desert. When Rhoda’s own adopted son suggests that the stories are nothing but lies, Laurel takes off in the middle of the night for Calexico, California, a town that has become almost mythical in her eyes as a result of Rhoda’s stories. It is Laurel’s intention to discover the truth. What she learns is not so much the truth about Rhoda as truth about herself.

Although I write for a religious market, I have no patience with mediocrity in the name of a message. Judy Alexander has an amazing way with language. This is not a fast-moving thriller or a tissue-box romance. It is the patient revelation of two vulnerable characters with whom many readers will identify. Alexander breaks out of the mold of Christian fiction with her realistic depiction of modern divorce. She takes on the sticky issue without contriving her story to give us accepted evangelical answers. She doesn’t preach or discuss theology. She does what fiction is supposed to do—tell stories—real stories, authentic stories. Even the pastor of Laurel’s new church has been divorced. (“She found a boyfriend, and I found Jesus,” he says of his separation from his wife after the death of a child.) And we eventually discover that Rhoda’s devoted Tony is not her first husband.

Laurel takes some missteps along the way. Nowhere does she pray “the sinner’s prayer,” but there is a definite shift in her thinking to ask what God wants with her life. Scattered throughout the volume are some of her wonderful photographs of the desert and the real Calexico, California. Alexander includes discussion questions for Book Clubs and even an e-mail address to invite interaction. Desert Medicine is well worth the read and bound to spark lively debate.

[In the interest of full disclosure, I read this book in manuscript form when Kregel Publications asked me to work on it.]