Dolen Perkins Valdez - Balm

After reading This Republic of Suffering by Harvard president and historian Drew Gilpin-Faust, a book which chronicles the Civil War’s legacy of death and destruction, New York Times-bestselling novelist Dolen Perkins-Valdez decided her next novel should investigate the possibilities of healing the personal and national trauma caused by the war. Balm looks not at the soldiers’ suffering but at the very real pain of widows, former slaves, and others.