Review: Over the Plain Houses by Julia Franks

Over the Plain Houses by Julia Franks (May 1, 2016 / Hub City Press)

Summary:
It’s 1939, and the federal government has sent USDA agent Virginia Furman into the North Carolina mountains to instruct families on modernizing their homes and farms. There she meets farm wife Irenie Lambey, who is immediately drawn to the lady agent’s self-possession. Already, cracks are emerging in Irenie’s fragile marriage to Brodis, an ex-logger turned fundamentalist preacher: She has taken to night ramblings through the woods to escape her husband’s bed, storing strange keepsakes in a mountain cavern. To Brodis, these are all the signs that Irenie—tiptoeing through the dark in her billowing white nightshirt—is practicing black magic.


When Irenie slips back into bed with a kind of supernatural stealth, Brodis senses that a certain evil has entered his life, linked to the lady agent, or perhaps to other, more sinister forces.
Working in the stylistic terrain of Amy Greene and Bonnie Jo Campbell, this mesmerizing and award-winning debut by Julia Franks is the story of a woman intrigued by the possibility of change, escape, and reproductive choice—stalked by a Bible-haunted man who fears his government and stakes his integrity upon an older way of life. As Brodis chases his demons, he brings about a final act of violence that shakes the entire valley. In this spellbinding Southern story, Franks bares the myths and mysteries that modernity can’t quite dispel.

My Review: 
This novel initially attracted my attention with its black magic/witchcraft theme, but it sat on on my Kindle until the author won the Townsend Prize last month. That sparked me into action and I moved it up on my list. Once I started reading this story, I had a difficult time with it and honestly considered quitting it several times...but I stuck with it. The problem for me was that Julia Frank's writing style is not modern and I found myself rereading several sentences to get the flow. My note to anyone who is going to read this is that you need to be aware of this, but stick with your reading and you will be greatly rewarded. 

When you think of religious fundamentalism and gender oppression, you probably don't think about the mountains of North Carolina in 1939, but Julia Franks blends the Salem witch trials with modern evangelicalism to produce a wonderful work of fiercely feminist historical fiction.