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Summary: Latest Review
Review: ". . .the arrival next week of Jones's new novel, 'The Healing', is a major literary event. . . Surprising, romantic and wholly satisfying. . . Fans of Gayl Jones have waited a long time to hear from her. They will not be disappointed. 'The Healing' is all it promises to be." -- Veronica Chambers, Newsweek
Rating:
Summary: Latest Review
Review: "['The Healing'] is a book about extraordinary powers and the needs of the ordinary self . . .In the end, "the" healing is revealed as an inclusive gradual process of understanding what your own self hopes for- a long journey from the mended chest wound to the satisfied heart." -- Elizabeth Schmidt, The Boston Phoenix
Rating: 
Summary: All things considered....
Review: ...this wasn't such a bad read. Like the reviewer before me, I was anxious to love this book. I had read about Gayl Jones' dramatic recent past with her possessive late husband, and about her re-emergence into the literary world with this work. It did, however, fall short of my expectations. Jones is clearly in possession of a great gift, and many of this book's passages are profound, but only in a topical, static way. The writing is masterful, but the story itself is lacking in the kind of depth that I was hoping for. The tale of Harlan, the supposedly low-profile manager of Joan, the caricature of a feminist rock star (and formerly brilliant chemist) is completely unbelievable. I couldn't figure out why the two continued to stay together, in spite of the bad blood between them which resulted from Harlan's having slept with Joan's former husband (and possibly the most one-dimensional of all the characters in this book). In spite of all this, I finished the book and I still respect the writing, but I am now interested in reading her first books, which are the ones that determined her literary stature in the first place. I'm sure I won't be let down. It's a hit-and-miss world after all.
Rating: 
Summary: Delightfully illuminating and shrewd
Review: This novel educates, illuminates, and entertains. It is replete with insights into our social condition. By entering into the mind of the main character, Harlan Jane Eagleton, we learn about an extremely diverse (economically, intellectually, and culturally) group of black people and the choices that she and they have made. As we get to know them, we are challenged to examine our own lives and ideas and the authenticity and integrity with which we live them. One might conclude from this book that DuBois' premise that a "Talented Tenth" would lead the way to freedom and achievement requires further refinement. This book does not bash black men, and its women are not victims. They are all people who have made choices, and, in understanding theirs, we may better understand our own. The few whites in the book, although minor characters, demonstrate some of the more insidious dynamics of racism. Whereas, Jones' first novel, Corregidora focused more on the long history of sexual and emotional oppression and abuse of black women in America, The Healing highlights the dis-ease in the relationships that blacks in the U.S. have amongst themselves, with whites, and with blacks in other parts world, so that we can heal ourselves and each other.
Rating:
Summary: LIVES UP TO THE HYPE AND HOOPLA
Review: Amidst much hype and hoopla award winning African-American writer Gayl Jones has delivered her first novel in twenty years. It lives up to the hype and deserves the hoopla. The Healing is the story of Harlan Jane Eagleton, a sharp-edged, questioning faith-healer cum beautician, race track habitue, rock star manager, and astute observer. As narrator she relates her experiences spunkily and discursively.
We meet her aboard a bus headed for one of the many small towns she visits. Clad in bomber jacket and jeans, Harlan dips into mustard sauced sardines as she contemplates her seat mate and her destination - she'll stay with a woman known for her strawberry pies, and go to the basement of the Freewill Baptist Church to show her "miracles and wonders." It is also there that she will again meet Nicholas, a man of import to the faith-healer, and her witness to healing who "stands up in front of the people and tells them all folksy-like about the first time I ever healed someone." Much later we learn that before Harlan could reach out to others, first and primarily, she first had to learn to heal herself. Harlan's story is also interwoven with the life of a German horse breeder, Josef, whom she meets at Saratoga. He takes her to his farm in Kentucky, a blue grass bastion protected by guards. "I ain't never been in the company of anyone who needed bodyguards before and no bulletproof windows," Harlan says. "But I been with others, ordinary people, who played games of who do you trust. " Yet she accepts this situation with elan, just as she accepts other extraordinary happenings. For to this woman, each event is a springboard to a greater question, a query that reaches far beyond boundaries of color or culture. One of the most interesting relationships to be explored is found between Harlan and the singer she manages, Joan Savage, who is a bit of a pugnacious pixie with a thatch of straight up yellow hair.. It's a symbiotic pairing fraught with both confrontation, after the singer discovers her ex-husband and her manager together, and consolation, as Harlan encourages Joan's career. And, it is in the exchanges between these two strong women that the reader is often privileged to see the author at her nuanced best, describing "the lightning still sleeping" in Joan's eyes or "But she's watching me. Like she the hunter. And I'm the deer." At the outset Harlan has only a modicum of self-knowledge, yet is savvy in her observations of humankind. While her route is circuitous, it is through deliberations and experiences that she eventually reaches her truth. It has been a risky journey but one well worth taking for Harlan and the reader. - Gail Cooke
Rating:
Summary: LIVES UP TO THE HYPE AND HOOPLA
Review: Amidst much hype and hoopla award winning African-American writer Gayl Jones has delivered her first novel in twenty years. It lives up to the hype and deserves the hoopla. The Healing is the story of Harlan Jane Eagleton, a sharp-edged, questioning faith-healer cum beautician, race track habitue, rock star manager, and astute observer. As narrator she relates her experiences spunkily and discursively.
We meet her aboard a bus headed for one of the many small towns she visits. Clad in bomber jacket and jeans, Harlan dips into mustard sauced sardines as she contemplates her seat mate and her destination - she'll stay with a woman known for her strawberry pies, and go to the basement of the Freewill Baptist Church to show her "miracles and wonders." It is also there that she will again meet Nicholas, a man of import to the faith-healer, and her witness to healing who "stands up in front of the people and tells them all folksy-like about the first time I ever healed someone." Much later we learn that before Harlan could reach out to others, first and primarily, she first had to learn to heal herself. Harlan's story is also interwoven with the life of a German horse breeder, Josef, whom she meets at Saratoga. He takes her to his farm in Kentucky, a blue grass bastion protected by guards. "I ain't never been in the company of anyone who needed bodyguards before and no bulletproof windows," Harlan says. "But I been with others, ordinary people, who played games of who do you trust. " Yet she accepts this situation with elan, just as she accepts other extraordinary happenings. For to this woman, each event is a springboard to a greater question, a query that reaches far beyond boundaries of color or culture. One of the most interesting relationships to be explored is found between Harlan and the singer she manages, Joan Savage, who is a bit of a pugnacious pixie with a thatch of straight up yellow hair.. It's a symbiotic pairing fraught with both confrontation, after the singer discovers her ex-husband and her manager together, and consolation, as Harlan encourages Joan's career. And, it is in the exchanges between these two strong women that the reader is often privileged to see the author at her nuanced best, describing "the lightning still sleeping" in Joan's eyes or "But she's watching me. Like she the hunter. And I'm the deer." At the outset Harlan has only a modicum of self-knowledge, yet is savvy in her observations of humankind. While her route is circuitous, it is through deliberations and experiences that she eventually reaches her truth. It has been a risky journey but one well worth taking for Harlan and the reader. - Gail Cooke
Rating:
Summary: LIVES UP TO THE HYPE AND HOOPLA
Review: Amidst much hype and hoopla award winning African-American writer Gayl Jones has delivered her first novel in twenty years. It lives up to the hype and deserves the hoopla. The Healing is the story of Harlan Jane Eagleton, a sharp-edged, questioning faith-healer cum beautician, race track habitue, rock star manager, and astute observer. As narrator she relates her experiences spunkily and discursively.
We meet her aboard a bus headed for one of the many small towns she visits. Clad in bomber jacket and jeans, Harlan dips into mustard sauced sardines as she contemplates her seat mate and her destination - she'll stay with a woman known for her strawberry pies, and go to the basement of the Freewill Baptist Church to show her "miracles and wonders." It is also there that she will again meet Nicholas, a man of import to the faith-healer, and her witness to healing who "stands up in front of the people and tells them all folksy-like about the first time I ever healed someone." Much later we learn that before Harlan could reach out to others, first and primarily, she first had to learn to heal herself. Harlan's story is also interwoven with the life of a German horse breeder, Josef, whom she meets at Saratoga. He takes her to his farm in Kentucky, a blue grass bastion protected by guards. "I ain't never been in the company of anyone who needed bodyguards before and no bulletproof windows," Harlan says. "But I been with others, ordinary people, who played games of who do you trust. " Yet she accepts this situation with elan, just as she accepts other extraordinary happenings. For to this woman, each event is a springboard to a greater question, a query that reaches far beyond boundaries of color or culture. One of the most interesting relationships to be explored is found between Harlan and the singer she manages, Joan Savage, who is a bit of a pugnacious pixie with a thatch of straight up yellow hair.. It's a symbiotic pairing fraught with both confrontation, after the singer discovers her ex-husband and her manager together, and consolation, as Harlan encourages Joan's career. And, it is in the exchanges between these two strong women that the reader is often privileged to see the author at her nuanced best, describing "the lightning still sleeping" in Joan's eyes or "But she's watching me. Like she the hunter. And I'm the deer." At the outset Harlan has only a modicum of self-knowledge, yet is savvy in her observations of humankind. While her route is circuitous, it is through deliberations and experiences that she eventually reaches her truth. It has been a risky journey but one well worth taking for Harlan and the reader. - Gail Cooke
Rating:
Summary: Worth the Wait
Review: Gayl Jones speaks the truth like no other writer. Her characters go on long, entertaining and insightful rants. They burst into soliloquies and reveal the inherent racism in America with humor. Her text shows how American culture legitimizes and perpetuates cultural insensitivity at every point. The main character, Harlan Jane Eagleton, discovers she can "heal" people of all sorts of ills, but she can't tackle society's ills. Her own path toward self-healing takes her all around the world, where she meets up with various stereotype-breaking people. The only minor flaws in this book are an inconsistent narrative voice and confusing narrative structure, but Jones playfully addresses both criticisms in her text, thus subverting any complaints. A book of the ages for the ages.
Rating:
Summary: Worth the Wait
Review: Gayl Jones speaks the truth like no other writer. Her characters go on long, entertaining and insightful rants. They burst into soliloquies and reveal the inherent racism in America with humor. Her text shows how American culture legitimizes and perpetuates cultural insensitivity at every point. The main character, Harlan Jane Eagleton, discovers she can "heal" people of all sorts of ills, but she can't tackle society's ills. Her own path toward self-healing takes her all around the world, where she meets up with various stereotype-breaking people. The only minor flaws in this book are an inconsistent narrative voice and confusing narrative structure, but Jones playfully addresses both criticisms in her text, thus subverting any complaints. A book of the ages for the ages.
Rating: 
Summary: Harlan, heal my eyes
Review: Gayl Jones' folktale is an engaging enough story. In spite of this, I was immensely frustrated while reading through it. The main character, the spiritual "Healer", is named Harlan. Similar to many other books I have read in the past, this book contains a lot of dialogue between the main character and other minor ones. Unlike any other novel I have read, the author chooses not to include any dialogue related punctuation in her work. This makes for a pretty confusing read. It was not until around page ten that I learned that there even was a difference between Harlan's personal thoughts and her numerous conversations. Jones also includes conversations other people have about Harlan in her novel. With a standard novel, this would not pose a problem to the reader. Nevertheless, with The Healing, it made for a struggling read. Since most of these conversations seemed crucial to Harlan's character development I felt guilty skipping over some of them. After a while, my eyes hurt. The absence of quotations is an interesting device, but, not worth the patience it requires. The Healing receives one star because the plot is fantastic. Harlan's grandmother is a dynamic character, and I found Harlan's journey to becoming a "healer" very interesting.
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