SUNDAY, JUNE 21, 2015
19
BOOKS
KLMNO WEEKLY
A post-Civil War story of healing
Secret agents in the food court
F ICTION
N ON-FICTION
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REVIEWED BY
C AROL M EMMOTT
n 2011, Washington writer Dolen Perkins-Valdez published “Wench,” an unsparing look at the brutal relationships between Southern plantation owners and the slaves they kept as mistresses. She captured the horrific treatment of these women even as they attempted to maintain their dignity. And now, in her second novel, “Balm,” she tells an equally moving story set in post-Civil War Chicago. When the Civil War ended and former slaves were able to travel, many of them migrated north in search of work in cities where communities of emancipated blacks were thriving. Perkins-Valdez brings together three memorable characters who, if the War Between the States had not taken place, never would have come together. Madge is a free-born black woman who leaves her emotionally shut-down mother in rural Tennessee and heads to Chicago to start a new life. Descended from a family of healers, she plans to use her skills to support herself and help others. “She wanted to know what this newfound freedom had in store for a colored woman.” Madge starts out as a street performer, mesmerizing crowds by immersing her hands in fire without getting burned. She is noticed one day by Sadie, who had traveled to Chicago two years earlier to live with her new husband — only to learn on her arrival that he’d been killed. Sadie hires Madge to be her maid, and eventually they meet Hemp, a former slave from Kentucky in search of his wife. She was sold off and lost to him before emancipation. Sadie, drowning in her own grief, is a gifted medium, and Hemp hopes she can tell him where to find his spouse. Through these three damaged characters, Perkins-Valdez explores what Sadie describes as haunted people searching for a new life in “a nation of death.”
Everyone has been touched by the war and is struggling to come to terms with its aftermath. Relief that the fighting is over has been replaced with confusion over how to move on. This monumental task is personified in a doctor described as “more corpse than man.” He bought his way out of fighting and blames himself for the fact that his brother went off to war and was killed. As he roams Chicago, he can’t stop thinking about the lives that were lost. Madge and Sadie are the most richly imagined characters. After the Civil War, Americans embraced the spiritualist movement in hopes of contacting dead loved ones. Fake mediums abound, but Sadie, it seems, is the real thing. Her reputation spreads far and wide, and the brokenhearted seek the help of “the Widow,” as she is known, to communicate with those they’ve lost. The emotional salve Sadie offers is juxtaposed with Madge’s ability to heal physical ailments. By laying her hands on the ill, she diagnoses their problems and treats them with herbs and roots. But despite their talents, Sadie and Madge can’t heal their own hearts or minds. What Perkins-Valdez so astutely observes about the aftermath of any horrific event is that “the best healing balm was hope.” Madge’s timeless observation aptly applies to this country’s continuing struggles with racism and violence. In gorgeous, compassionate prose, Perkins-Valdez continues our national conversation about people working together to heal our communities. Near the end of the novel, a woman watching Madge mashing ginger root in a bowl says, “It sure does take a lot of different ingredients to make a healing balm,” to which Madge replies, “Ain’t that the truth.” n Memmott frequently reviews books for The Washington Post.
E BALM By Dolen PerkinsValdez Amistad. 272 pp. $25.99
HOW TO CATCH A RUSSIAN SPY The True Story of an American Civilian Turned Double Agent By Naveed Jamali and Ellis Henican Scribner. 290 pp. $26
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REVIEWED BY
C ARLOS L OZADA
ver watched a spy thriller or a war film and fantasized about being that undercover agent or hunky officer outwitting the evil mastermind, defusing the bomb, seducing the love interest and saving the homeland? Naveed Jamali has, probably far too many times. “Top Gun” and “Point Break.” “Rocky IV” (the one where Rocky knocks out Ivan Drago, the Soviet champion) and “Miami Vice” (not the ’80s television series, but the 2006 movie with Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx). You know those guys who trot out a film or TV reference for any life event? He’s one of those guys. But unlike those guys, Jamali was lucky enough to live out his fantasy. No, the FBI didn’t pay him to learn how to surf, but Jamali, a smart, young New York techie, somehow spent three years going toe to toe with a Russian intelligence officer who thought he was developing an asset, even though all the while Jamali was quietly collaborating with U.S. federal agents. The fastpaced, occasionally stressful, often hilarious and invariably selfinvolved story of how it all went down is the subject of “How to Catch a Russian Spy.” Jamali’s mother and father emigrated from France and Pakistan, respectively, and met in graduate school in New York, where they married and formed a company called Books & Research. It specialized in digging up articles, reports, technical data and books for businesses and government agencies, a sort of “Google for a preGoogle age,” their son explains. This small business soon became a minor front in the waning days of the Cold War. In 1988, when Jamali was 12, a Soviet official from the U.N. mission in New York came into the office. He presented a list of documents he needed: a special issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a SIPRI World Armaments and Disarmament Yearbook, stuff like that. Jamali’s father
took the order. Half an hour later, two FBI agents entered the shop and politely asked to see what the prior visitor had ordered. “Mr. Tomakhin is part of Soviet intelligence,” they explained. Jamali’s father showed them the list. “Complete his order,” the agents said. “Treat him like you would any customer. When he returns — if he returns — we will be in touch.” And just like that began a twodecade collaboration between Jamali’s parents and a rotating cast of Soviet (later Russian) officials on one side, and the FBI on the other. In the meantime, Jamali was dipping in and out of college, becoming a programmer. Sept. 11, 2001, made him feel he had to finally find a purpose. That’s when he remembered his parents’ Cold War customers. So he reached out to the FBI and suggested that he take more risks, entice the enemy further. At the time, the Russian official coming by Books & Research was a gruff, short, middle-aged and monosyllabic intelligence officer named Oleg. Watching Jamali and Oleg trying to outsmart each other is the joy of the book, because they’re both so awkward at it. Jamali is crushed when he finds that their clandestine meeting places are all chain restaurants in strip malls. “We were going to Pizzeria Uno?” Jamali asks himself. “Was this really where treason was committed these days?” “How to Catch a Russian Spy,” co-written with journalist Ellis Henican, is an entertaining and breezy read, with little to overthink. 20th Century Fox has acquired the movie rights and is reportedly planning a 2017 thriller. The book is perfect for a bigscreen adaptation — with one caveat. This tale is more funny than thrilling. I hope they make it a comedy. n Lozada is associate editor and nonfiction book critic of The Washington Post.