Review: Peace I Ask of Thee Oh River

Author: Lyda Phillips

ISBN: 0595361722

The following review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN:Editor of Bookpleasures. CLICK TO VIEW Norm Goldman's Reviews

To read Norm's Interview With Lyda CLICK HERE

To effectively deal with difficult topics addressed to a teenage audience such as suicide, sibling grief, guilt, anger, rejection, abnormal behavior, denial, and bullying is no easy feat and it takes a certain amount of boldness and courage on the part of the author to pull it off. This is precisely what Lyda Phillips set out to accomplish with her recent novel, Peace I Ask of Thee Oh River, and she has acquitted herself admirably.

Phillips recounts the story of a typical American 18-year old Eleanor or as she prefers to be called, El, who, as a counselor in a girls’ summer camp in North Carolina meets up with a disturbed teenager, Tiffin Ramsey. Tiffin is the granddaughter of old Senator Joe Ramsey, who was a huge segregationist in the 1950s and she is also the daughter of Governor Cameron Ramsey, who has presidential aspirations.

For six weeks during the summer months, the Ramseys will be campaigning and they are not very keen on having Tiffin trail along with them. Consequently, they have decided to enroll Tiffin in Camp Nichia, where they feel she would benefit from the camp experience. They have given specific instructions that she is not to have any special treatment and that the less the campers know about her the better. They have also indicated to the supervisor of the camp that Tiffin has some “minor” behavioral problems.

This is a compelling and well written novel wherein the author proves to be adept at capturing a sense of place, as she depicts the “clickish” and sometimes cruel atmosphere of a girl’s camp and the mistreatment of some of the campers by their peers the “pressure-cooker passions, girls in love with each other, hating each other, torturing each other, making up legends, worshiping traditions, having crushes, and playing favorites.”

It is a story of painful emotions wherein an inexperienced 18-year old is forced to deal with a very disturbed young teenager that eventually proves to have a profound and lingering effect on her own psyche. Reflecting on her own behavior, El asks herself if she should she feel pity or protectiveness?

No doubt, this novel will raise some very interesting questions. How do you deal with family tragedy and whom do you turn to for advice and help, particularly when you are only eighteen and inexperienced?