Back to Wando Passo
Editor's Pick for March 27, 2006
Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal -- Library Journal, 3/28/2006
Payne, David. Back to Wando Passo. Morrow. Jun. 2006. c.448p. ISBN 0-06-085189-9 [ISBN 978-0-06-085189-7]. $24.95. F
Washed-up rock musician Ransom Hill heads home to South Carolina, intent on mending his relationship with wife Claire, who has fled with their two children to her ancestral home, Wando Passo. Despite his best intentions—he'll take his meds, he'll be civil to Claire's longtime friend Marcel—he keeps coming up short. When odd things start happening after he unearths a voudou pot in the backyard, Ran goes on a quest to uncover secrets about Claire's family, setting himself on the right path in the process. The novel alternates smoothly between Ran's story and that of Claire's ancestor Harlan and his wife, Addie, who comes to realize her preference for the gentle slave who is Harlan's half-brother. The parallels between past and present may seem too obvious, the text a bit long-winded, and the voudou element not entirely persuasive, but this is still a luscious, engaging, and heartfelt novel with plenty to say about individual responsibility and the legacy of slavery. Remarkably, Payne (Gravesend Light) manages to make the damaged and damaging Ran an empathetic character. A fine addition to all fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/06.]
