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Conjure Women
Afia Atakora describes the novel: "Conjure Women then is my humble offering to what I have to believe is the new movement of the Slave Novel, one that dares to tell the tales beyond a legacy of whippings against which readers have grown understandably numb."

Afia Atakora’s novel, Conjure Women, is a tale set in the antebellum South and the postbellum South. Atakora writes about three women and the haunting story: “their secrets and passions, their tragedies and desires, and the lengths they will go to save themselves and those they love.” Their lives are intertwined as Miss May Belle, the local, wise conjure woman who lived during the antebellum South, and her daughter, Rue, who also shares the talent for healing and the ability to conjure curses. Miss May Belle serves the townspeople and their slave master’s daughter, Varina, who is also Rue’s secret lifelong friend. Rue grows to see the postbellum South and must face heartache along with the changing tensions connected to her past secrets, present tragedies and passions, and future fears.

The allegorical Southern Gothic tale is grounded within the traumatic history of slavery and war and the rich power of hoodoo or conjuring. Atakora’s novel also sheds light on the experience of enslaved people, more specifically their oppression and fragile freedom, as the novel ricochets between the antebellum and postbellum periods. The narrative structure of this novel essentially switches between two time frames, and the titles of each chapter are telling of which, the primary two switching from ‘Slaverytime’ and ‘Freedomtime.’

Synopsis
"Conjure Women, a dazzling debut that sweeps across eras and generations to tell the story of a mother and daughter with a shared talent for healing—and the conjuring of curses." Miss May Belle, a woman who is believed to be gifted with both powers of healing and conjuring of curses, tends to the local townspeople and their slave master, while her young daughter, Rue, learns and observes her mysterious work and abilities. Rue faces the challenge to carry on the mysterious powers for cursing and healing during the postbellum period, an era in which the townspeople hold on tightly to their fragile freedom. Rue, taking over her mother's work as a conjure woman and midwife, deals with healing sickness and frequently delivers the babies of the townspeople just as she watched her mother, May Belle.

The novel begins with Rue being awakened in the middle of the night by a terrifying baby's cry; Rue recalls the birth of this baby, a boy named Bean. His birth was unusual compared to the other babies Rue had delivered as he came out in a "black mass...the coal-dark sack squirmed in Rue's hands." In fear of the child, Rue hesitated but freed him of the sack he was in only to be shocked at the color of his eyes, "for when they blinked open they were fully black, edged thinly in egg-boil white. The baby's eyes were the same glossy black as the veil-like husk that held him."

Shortly after, the reader meets the novel's narrative structure and is moved back and forth between the antebellum South and the postbellum South. Atakora moves the reader back to the antebellum South to begin to unfold the stories of Miss May Belle, the young Varina, and Rue's coming-of-age story. Miss May Belle is a trusted, wise woman who stays out of the messiness around her. Still, she faces challenges as she serves her slave master and the locals, a clashing use of her powers being that she will do anything to keep herself and Rue safe, even at the cost of the locals. However, she looks out for them and does so at the cost of her own safety. Meanwhile, young Rue is observant of the conjuring ways, yet her curious and secretive nature leads her to form an unlikely friendship with their slave master's daughter, Varina. Varina and Rue bond over their curiosity and ability to keep secrets. Despite her strict upbringing, Varina is a natural rule-breaker who grows up with Rue, but not alongside Rue, for she lives a very different life. Still, as the plot unfolds, so does Varina's coming-of-age story, secrets, and haunting tragedies.

During the postbellum era, Miss Rue faces tensions with the townspeople as they question her powers, their fragile safety and freedom, and their overall protection and fortune. Such tensions push her to dwell on the secrets from her past, and her mysterious change in behavior, like her visits to the Old Church, is quickly noticed. Meanwhile, Abel, the traveling preacher, visits town per his routine of the season and later returns after a desperate calling from the townspeople due to a plague-like illness, which they accuse Miss Rue's conjuring to be responsible for. He provides hope to the townspeople as they've lost trust in Miss Rue. He preaches as a religious man with clear intentions to save everyone, including Miss Rue and Bean. Miss Rue and Abel are enemies in nature but become allies as they work to assure the townspeople of their safety and well-being. Desperately, much like Miss May Belle and Varina did, Rue uses her abilities in questionable ways. Rue uses her abilities to save herself, save those she loves, and be trusted by the townspeople again.

Themes: history of slavery, history of war, and love, secrets, tragedy, passions, and mysterious powers of conjure and religion.

Miss May Belle
Miss May Belle is the midwife. She is gifted with the mysterious gift of healing and conjuring curses. She is Rue's mother and a wise woman who is trusted.

Miss Rue
Miss Rue is the daughter of May Belle. She shares her mother's gift for healing and conjuring curses. Atakora reveals her story through the narrative structure of the postbellum South.

Varina
Varina is the slave master's daughter and secretly, Rue's friend.

Abel
Abel is a traveling preacher who is both enemy and ally to Miss Rue.

Bean
Bean is a child, the son of Sarah and Jonah. He is believed to be something bad, like a product of a curse for his unusual birth and different eyes.

Ma Doe
Ma Doe is the mother-figure and caregiver for the motherless, the master's children, and the townspeople.

Reception
Conjure Women has received praise for Atakora's ability to transport the reader as the plot unfolds and themes reach their connection and clarity.

- Nell Freudenberger, author of Lost and Wanted, praises Conjure Women in saying: “If you are grieving for Toni Morrison, Afia Atakora is the young writer to read now: the kind of historical novelist who makes you believe she must have somehow seen the places she describes and known these characters herself. Her astonishing debut takes the reader to a Reconstruction-era Southern plantation, where two little girls—the enslaved child of the local healer and the planter’s cloistered daughter—become unlikely friends. Conjure Women illuminates an unfamiliar corner of Civil War history and brings to life an indelible character whose talents, from midwifery to voodoo, will yield her own unconventional path to power and freedom.”

- Chinelo Okparanta, author of Under the Udala Trees and Happiness, Like Water praises, Conjure Women in saying: “Richly imagined and elegantly rendered, Conjure Women transports us into the lives of powerfully determined women. Their intricate web of secrets will keep you turning its pages. Ambitious, hypnotic, not quite devastating, Conjure Women marks the arrival of a major new voice.”

- Caleb Johnson, author of Treeborne praises Conjure Women in saying: "In Conjure Women Afia Atakora masterfully centers two generations of women, folk healers who carry the secrets of their community while bearing the brunt of its antebellum past and its reconstructed present. Telling a gripping story at once grand and intimate, Atakora renders humanity in all its beautiful fits and flaws. Page after page, her voice announces itself like a thunderclap. The women in this novel will blessedly stick with you long after the last word has been read.”

- Publishers Weekly praises Conjure Women in saying: "[A] haunting, promising debut... Through complex characters and bewitching prose, Atakora offers a stirring portrait of the power conferred between the enslaved women. This powerful tale of more ambiguity amid inarguable injustice stands with Esi Edugyan's Washington Black."

- The New York Times Book Review praises Conjure Women in saying: "Satanic superstitions are just a few of the dangers confronting Rue, heroine of Afia Atakora's satisfyingly spooky first novel, Conjure Women.... Cleverly ricocheting her chapters between the 1850s and the 1860s, Atakora shows how the legacy of bondage is played out in the aftermath of way."