Amaryllis in Blueberry has been on my "to read" list since before it was even released. I read that its similar to Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, which I love, so just that right there entered it immediately to my list.
Dick and Seena are two parents with four daughters. The Slepy's spend each summer in 1970's Michigan. The family is Catholic, although each family member believes to a different degree. The book addresses the issue of how outward appearances of religious devotion doesn't always match true belief. The youngest daughter is Amaryllis, dissimilar to her sisters in looks and her ability to read emotions on people in the form of colors, see the future, and sense the past. The three elder daughters are all Mary's: Mary Grace, the beautiful one, Mary Catherine, the obsessive devout one, and Mary Tessa, the one who questions them all. Dick is religious, Seena is obsessed with mythology.
The summer of 1976, Grace ends up pregnant, and Seena's secret that Amaryllis was secretly fathered by an Indian is out. Catie stops eating as a permanent fast for God, and Tessa wonders how she ended up in such a crazy family. Dick turns to porn and a prostitute, which makes Seena rethink his role as husband and breadwinner. Amaryllis observes her whole family with her blueberry colored eyes.
To escape impending doom, the Slepy's move to Africa. Dick is a doctor and believes he can establish a hospital in an unnamed west African country for redemption. Once in Africa, the Slepy's find truth, love, and individual redemption.
To say this book is based loosely off the The Poisonwood Bible is an understatement. It's very very similar. White family from middle America goes to Africa in hopes of "saving" it, either through religion or modern medicine. A family of all girl children, each vastly different, and all struggling to establish an identity within the confines of the family. Sibling rivalry, different reactions to Africa, a troubled child, a favored child. Maybe its not fair to compare the two books as such, but its hard to disassociate the two.
Meldrum is a very poetic, somewhat abstract writer. Part of the charm of the book is her writing style, which distracts from the lack of solid plot. The book moved along at a snails pace (not necessarily in a bad way), until the end where so much action happened in a very short amount of time. I was disappointed the book ended where it did. It almost seemed too short, and somewhat...unfinished?
Still worth the read though, especially if you like a more lyrical writer. For a strong, well developed plot about a white family in Africa, I'd stick with The Poisonwood Bible.
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