Synopsis
When Judith Rice fled her childhood home, she thought she’d severed her abusive mother’s hold on her. She didn’t have a plan or destination, just a desperate need to escape. Drawn to the forests of southern Georgia, Jude finds shelter in a house as haunted by its violent history as she is by her own.
Jude embraces the eccentricities of the dilapidated house, soothing its ghosts and haints, honoring its blood-soaked land. And over the next thirteen years, Jude blossoms from her bitter beginnings into a wisewoman, a healer.
But her hard-won peace is threatened when an enigmatic woman shows up on her doorstep. The woman is beautiful but unsettling, captivating but uncanny. Ensnared by her desire for this stranger, Jude is caught off guard by brutal urges suddenly simmering beneath her skin. As the woman stirs up memories of her escape years ago, Jude must confront the calls of violence rooted in her bloodline.
Review
I cannot begin to describe just how jealous I am of Yah Yah Scholfield’s ability to craft a story so vivid, so dense with forestry imagery, where nature feels like its creeping its way into your soul, and where every word is earned in this lush tapestry that explores cyclical abuse, freedom, power, self-discovery and acceptance, trauma and surviving it, family history, relationships, the healing power of the earth, racism, queer love, and so much more.
Honestly, how Yah Yah managed to write something so affecting and, plainly speaking, so fucking good, right out of the gate as their DEBUT SHITTING NOVEL is just unreal!
Jokes aside, this book is great, just go and read it.
But what is On Sundays She Picked Flowers about? Following Judith Rice, a woman who escapes her abusive mother and disappears into the Okefenokee forest, taking refuge in a dilapidated house that seems to have a sentience all of its own. Whilst there, she is visited by a beautiful stranger, and her life changes forever.
Scholfield pens a surreal tale that put me in mind of Pan’s Labyrinth (with less eye-ball hand monsters), in terms of that this is a very grounded story that explores abuse and abusers in an often heartbreaking manner, yet the tale is interspersed with moments of the weird, moments that feel like a dark fairy tale. We have a house that has needs to be placated or it will throw a temper tantrum, haints that both hinder and guide Judith, a colourful forest filled with enough flowers and herbs to make a master apothecary blush, and a bear that seems to be more than just a wild beast. This otherworldly feeling is so clearly influenced by VanderMeer (with a passage from Annihilation included as an epigraph) but this a good thing, because where Scholfield wears their influences on their sleeves, it is utilised to become something wholly original.
On Sundays She Picked Flowers is this year’s The Lamb. A haunting, provoking fairytale-like story exploring the depths of abuse, a heartbreaking novel that ultimate feels colourful, bright, and hopeful, despite the darkness that haunts our cast. An absolutely stunning debut!
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