THE SPARROW SISTERS, Ellen Herrick

Fair warning: The Sparrow Sisters isn’t really a fantasy story in the expected sense. In fact, you could argue it’s not fantasy at all because we’re never sure if magic is present. Just about all the characters dismiss the notion that there’s magic at work. I wouldn’t even feel comfortable putting this novel in the magical realism category. And yet there’s enough uncertainty and peculiarity to be outside the usual bounds of the “real world” that I decided this book deserved to be discussed on my blog. Plus, it’s my blog and I can break my own rules, so there.

An argument can be made that there are moments of “hyper” reality—that is, there are incidents involving our heroines that don’t quite fit into what most people would consider typical or ordinary. All this ambiguity is steeped in the historical component of the story’s world. The titular Sparrow sisters, three grown single women who live in Granite Point, a tight-knit New England town, are descended from a Puritan-era healer who ended up on trial as a witch. The sisters themselves claim that such an ability derives from both natural (non-magical) talent and a thorough knowledge of herbal remedies. But one sister stands out as especially endowed, and as expected she ends up in the center of the inevitable storm.

The Sparrow sisters are painted in rather broad strokes: Sorrel is the oldest, stoic and reliable; Nettie (Nettle) is the sweet, naïve and meeker middle child; Impatiens, nicknamed Patience, is the feisty youngster (in her late twenties or early thirties) who possesses a strong knack for knowing what is ailing people, both literal illness and more intangible woes. It won’t come as a surprise when newcomer Dr. Henry Carlyle, who moves to Granite Point to replace the local physician, brushes up against Patience in some tense and snippy exchanges but gradually falls into a heated romance with her. Like any proper brooding love interest, Henry is not only a skeptic of homegrown remedies. He’s also recovering from a traumatic experience overseas that resulted in a leg injury and a failed attempt to save a child’s life. Nevertheless, Henry’s and Patience’s stubborn walls cannot withstand the inexplicable attraction they feel for each other. For better or worse, they irrevocably change. Henry becomes more accepting of things that logic cannot define, and Patience lets herself be more attached and dependent on the people in her life.

I say better or worse primarily because I don’t entirely like how Patience changes over the course of the book. I like her spark and sass in the beginning, even if her attitude could border on bratty, but everything that happens to her, including Henry, kind of wears her down to a meeker version of herself. Granted, she has plenty of reason to feel defeated in certain moments when the main crisis occurs, but after a while I grow frustrated with how everyone else in the story does a lot more to get her through this trial than she does herself. If she’s not moping in bed, she’s berating herself over how much everyone in her life cares about her when she doesn’t deserve it. There’s exploring a character’s vulnerable side and forcing them to face their own flaws, and then there’s a throwing said character an unending party of self-loathing and self-pity.

The unfortunate turn of events that sends Patience spiraling is the death of an autistic boy, Matty, whom she looks after when the boy’s father is too drunk or grieved by the memory of his deceased wife to be an attentive parent. Matty takes an interest in Patience’s trade as a healer, but he frequently misinterprets her explanations of what each plant does, which indirectly leads to his death. This is another aspect of the story I’m uncomfortable with—an autistic character solely as a device for creating conflict and drama—but it’s not the worst possible scenario. We get insight into Matty’s thoughts and desires, if only briefly before his untimely demise. It’s also a little unfair that he’s essentially done in by his own hand (entirely by accident), even while we know some blame can be thrown at his father for not being around. The problem is that Matty essentially exists to propel the stories of other characters. I’m not saying The Sparrow Sisters should have been about him, but why did he have to die? Only so that he could make no defense for Patience—yes, Patience. She’s the one who ends up being taken to court, rather than Matty’s father, when the autopsy reveals that Matty died from a plant that Patience could’ve given to him.

Since this book is set in a small northeast American town, albeit present day, naturally there’s a “witch trial.” It’s a warning sign that there won’t be much in the way of fantastical elements. The story’s moral, if you will, emphasizes how outsiders or any individuals living on the fringe of a community are unfairly targeted when a catastrophe strikes. Such is what happens to Patience, and it exposes the rest of the community members and their personal motives. A few surprises in character growth emerge to make the drama more interesting, but those moments rarely come from the main characters, oddly enough. Yes, we see Patience and Henry change throughout the story, but they react to events as we expect them to react, whereas some of the side characters show sudden insight or maturity that still manage to be consistent to their characters while refreshingly unanticipated.

The other surprising development (although not that surprising if you read the book’s back-cover blurb) is what convinced me that I should review this book as a fantasy enthusiast. When Patience’s trial begins, the weather starts to turn bad. Very bad. Like, super gross. Plants are dying at a terrifying and nauseating rate. Rains are washing out streets. Fish and other marine life that fishermen depend on for business disappear. Some of the characters observe this and connect it to what Patience is going through, but no one attributes it to magic. One character simply says that the town is a living entity that has grown sick while its healer is betrayed by neighbors who previously relied on her remedies and wisdom. Okay, then.

There’s more: even in their regular lives, the Sparrow sisters are surrounded by abundance from nature, even in seasons when certain plants shouldn’t be in bloom but are. We also have Henry experience bouts of improvement from his chronic leg pain, either from tonics Patience slips him or her touch alone, which could be explicitly attributed to a scientific cause but isn’t. The reader is left to pull a bit of a Schrodinger’s cat. You can believe and not believe in a magical or supernatural explanation at the same time. To me, Herrick wants to give us a world where magic and nature are one and the same. Or she doesn’t want to commit to making The Sparrow Sisters a fantasy novel even as she imbues its world with faintly mystical possibilities. That’s all well and good if you just like family-centered, romance-centered, or law-and-order-centered drama in a small-town setting. I just wish the blurb didn’t mislead readers into thinking this belongs in the same genre as Practical Magic. It’s close, but not quite there.

Rating: 3.5/5