The Sweet Bye and Bye

by Jeanne Mackin

Book Overview

Maggie and Katie Fox spent their Victorian childhood in a supposedly haunted house in Hydesville, New York. To entertain themselves, the girls devised a method of contacting the noisy spirit. (In fact, they rigged up apples on strings to fake the bumping sounds.) As word of their unusual talents spread, the girls became famous, touring the country to hold seances with the likes of Horace Greeley and Mrs. Abraham Lincoln.Helen West, a journalist trying...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312269978
• ISBN13: 9780312269975
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 293 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Flawless and Compelling

I just picked this book up at the Historical Novel Society conference and started reading it that night. I've always been fascinated by the Spiritualism movement, and Ms Mackin makes Maggie Fox come alive for me. We understand why she did what she did--not just that crazy charlatan who snowed everyone. The other modern story is equally as compelling. Normally I like things a bit more action-adventure oriented but this is a book I'd recommend to anyone.

Masterly and fervent.

Mackin's narrator, while asserting that she is no "hagiographer of spurious mystics," is an engaging woman, solid in her station, widely conversant with the deeper reaches of the paranormal, and magically involved with her quest. Here she leads the mind in a chase as she finds herself tempted to believe in the return of departed spirits, in a prose that is as amiable to read as the palm of a hand. A haunting book in every way.

An intimate sojourn through the centuries.

I read this novel in two sittings, eager to learn how the lives and love stories turned out, and also fascinated by the historical accuracy, the textures of everyday life. Before I realized it, I was swept up in Maggie and Helen's intersecting worlds: those they make, those they inherit, those they intuit, those they're hauled into by others. One of the book's many charms is how wisely it reveals the values and passions (the erotic scenes are fabulous) of two women from very different eras who, nonetheless, have everything in common.

EDDYS OF TIME AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT

Jeanne Mackin's novel about Helen West, a freelance writer who is commissioned to produce a magazine article on Maggie Fox, the founder of the American spiritualism movement, begins simply enough with this premise, then spirals with increasing power and depth into a maelstrom of time and the human spirit. Mackin's writing skills gently but firmly take the reader by the hand -- we are led into the reality of the lives of the two women, moving gracefully back and forth across time as their indivdual stories unfold.As her article progresses, and West learns more about her subject, parallels between their lives -- often very subtle -- emerge, drawing the two women, born over a century apart, inexorably closer to one another. Maggie's life is over, of course -- and in many ways Helen feels that her life is over as well. Casting a clear, discerning eye on Maggie's methods of sham and fakery, Helen senses a hint of reality, of true belief, at the core. Through a series of seemingly unexplainable incidents, Helen begins to sense light shed upon events in her own life -- light that seems to emanate from the life of Maggie Fox.Unable after three years to gain any sense of closure following the death of her lover, Helen feels herself -- and her sanity -- slipping away. She feels a great burden of guilt from which she is unable to free herself. Opening the life of Maggie Fox for her article is like opening Pandora's box -- the more she learns, the more questions she has. Can the spirits of the dead really communicate with the living? Was everything Maggie Fox stood for really nothing but fakery and parlor tricks? Was Maggie's public 'confession' heartfelt, or was it simply revenge? Helen West searches for the answers to these and many more questions, both about the Fox sisters and about her own life -- and through her, Jeanne Mackin allows us to ask them of ourselves as well.Mackin's own research into the lives of the Fox sisters goes very far in adding a great deal of plausability to her story. Maggie Fox and her sisters held 'sittings' and seances for the rich and famous of their time -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Horace Greeley, Abraham Lincoln's widow, and many other notables. The author lets us see that anyone -- rich and famous, or poor and faceless -- can feel enough pain, can ache enough to want to believe in the 'services' the sisters offered. Her characters are developed subtly and completely -- they are human and believable. The burning questions in Helen's heart are ones we would well ask if we were in her shoes -- and Mackin's formidable, well-honed skills as a writer put us right there. This is an intelligently written, imaginatively conceived novel -- very entertaining and fulfilling, and well worth the read.

A Good Read About the Fox Sisters

I found THE SWEET BY AND BY to be an outstanding book, a fascinating account of the Fox sisters and the early days of American Spiritualism, as seen through the eyes of a contemporary journalist. Well written and fast paced, Makin is an excellent writer. I enjoyed this book greatly and recommend it highly.