New Book for Review: Nonfiction Narrative ‘As the Sycamore Grows’ by Jennie Helderman

As the Sycamore Grows Jennie Helderman will be touring in May 2011 with her nonfiction book, As the Sycamore Grows. Imagine Foxfire living while Sleeping with the Enemy in the hills of Tennessee when the enemy totes a Bible and packs a .38. Mike shoved and slapped but his primary tools were isolation and economic abuse. Until he discovered the power of the Lord. As the Sycamore Grows is a nonfiction narrative about ending the legacy of abuse. Ginger McNeil was brought up to pray and obey, but she escaped the padlocked cabin in the woods where she lived off the land with no electricity or telephone. Today she’s a court advocate in the domestic court system. A briefcase-carrying professional woman. Her husband Mike admits the abuse, holds no remorse and would do it all again. God made women to serve, he says. It’s their job. Both Ginger and Mike speak, as do family, friends, ex-spouses and others. Thus Ginger is revealed as a flawed heroine who as a rebellious teenage bride abandoned her baby. Mike ran away from his father’s fists but years later glimpsed himself in his father’s casket. From south Texas to Tennessee the couple spiral down into poverty—by Mike’s choice—and abuse enforced by religion and a pistol. Threading through the story is loss: the alienation of families, a spiritual void from betrayal by their church, and the death of the son Ginger had abandoned. It’s this teenage boy’s suicide, symbolized by a sycamore tree, which becomes the wedge that allows Ginger to break free and ultimately work to help batterers change. Will Mike change? Will the legacy of abuse end?

You can visit her website at www.jenniehelderman.com.

If you would like to review As the Sycamore Grows, email us by clicking here or email Dorothy Thompson at thewriterslife@yahoo.com. Deadline for inquiries end July 25 or until the tour is filled. Thank you!


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