AS THE SYCAMORE GROWS

Helderman chronicles a woman’s journey from battered wife to advocate for victims of spousal abuse in this nonfiction work.

Two quotes set the stage for this well-researched narrative that puts a human face on an all-too-common issue. The first comes from Ginger McNeil, who tells the author, “I lived in a cabin in the woods, too poor to afford electricity, and too afraid of my husband to leave.” The second comes from Ginger’s husband, Mike, who, matter-of-factly and without remorse, comments: “One time I hauled off and slapped the fool out of her….Men will understand….I wouldn’t change a thing if I could go back.” Hearing these words, the author, then on assignment to write a magazine piece about poverty in Alabama, switched her focus to McNeil and her story. In this book, she reports with a journalist’s keen eye and ear for the telling detail and quote: “I noticed her when she came in the door,” says a county clerk worker, recalling Ginger years later. “She looked broken down, like an old hollow-eyed woman in a faded cotton print dress. I could see she was frightened to death.” The author notes that the family lived remotely, like pioneers or survivalists; “He chose this way of life for us,” McNeil explains. In Helderman’s telling, McNeil’s fraught exit from her marriage (a scene in which her husband shows up at a court hearing and hands her a picture of their dead son, a suicide victim, is chilling) feels like a hard-won triumph. The author does give Mike—now deceased—the opportunity to tell his side (“It wasn’t all bad. Ginger and me”). Though those encounters thrum with the tension of possible threats to her own safety, she does an admirable job of presenting his perspective without resorting to “gotcha” questions. But the narrative is rooted in McNeil’s bravery and her determination to tell her story as repayment to the women’s shelter workers who aided her. This is an updated version of Helderman’s award-winning 2010 book.

At times a difficult read, but the humanity and McNeil’s indomitable spirit shine through.