The story of two estranged friends, and the betrayal that tore them apart
Downtown Los Angeles, 1990. Alone in her luxury hotel suite, the reclusive Lacey Crane receives a message: Edith is waiting for her in the lobby. Former best friends, Lacey and Edith haven’t spoken to one another in over four decades. As young adults meeting at summer camp in Maine, and later making their way in the glitzy spotlight of postwar Hollywood, Edith and Lacey share a deep-rooted bond that once saved them from isolation and despair, providing comfort from the public and private traumas that they had each endured and which a newly optimistic world was eager to forget.
Told in a continuous, twisting conversation on a single evening, in which each woman tells her story and reveals long-hidden secrets, the narratives of Edith and Lacey burn with atmosphere, mystery, resentment, and regret. Set against the vivid landscapes of Los Angeles and unfolding with the evanescence of a dream, Goldenseal peels away the layers of an intimate female friendship to reveal a haunting story about the search for connection and the lingering echoes of lost love.
Maria Hummel’s latest novel is a tightly-written story of friendship and betrayal. It’s an engaging character study, and (in my opinion) the author’s best book to-date.
Goldenseal is a relatively short novel, but Hummel manages to pack a lot into it. The story hangs on the premise of Edith calling on Lacey, unannounced, decades since they last spoke. Reluctantly, Lacey invites Edith up for dinner — despite having lived as a functional recluse in the hotel for years. Finally, the two former friends have the conversation they should have had decades ago. The two characters provide their memories and interpretations of past events — their initial meeting at summer camp, their childhoods, and their respective careers in Hollywood.
The protagonists are from very different backgrounds, and their early life experiences couldn’t have been more different. Lacey is the daughter of a successful hotel owner. Her parents are Jewish immigrants who were forced to watch impotently as the events of the Holocaust unfolded. As we learn, the different coping mechanisms of her parents led to struggles and difficulties — for the family as a whole, but also each individual in their own ways. Edith is from a poor family, with an abusive father. After connecting at camp, Lacey does everything she can to help Edith, to pull her out of her situation and bring her to Los Angeles. This starts a long, close relationship, as the two of them grow into young women and start circling the movie industry. Lacey, not as beautiful or gifted as Edith, nevertheless marries the up-and-coming actor, acquiring plenty of the spotlight. Edith, less interested in stardom, nevertheless ends up working behind the camera, helping Lacey’s husband with screenwriting. But… there was a betrayal during these years, which irreparably tore the friends apart.
Hummel does a very good job, parcelling out revelations and details of Lacey’s and Edith’s pasts — shared and private. Both as sympathetic characters, and I came to care for both of them, invested in their pasts and whatever resolution may or may not come from this long-delayed conversation/confrontation. The author also does a very good job weaving into the story of Los Angeles and Hollywood history. However, this is first and foremost the story of Edith and Lacey, the deep friendships that can form between people from different backgrounds, and the ways these relationships can lift and ruin us. The ending was satisfying (for me, if not the characters), as well as moving.
I won’t go into any more detail, here. I will say, though, that I very much enjoyed Goldenseal. Prior to this, I’d read Hummel’s Still Lives (2018), which I quite enjoyed. However, this latest novel was so much better. I finished very keen to read more by Hummel, and I eagerly await whatever she writes next.
*
Maria Hummel’s Goldenseal is out now, published by Counterpoint in North America and in the UK.
Civilian Reader 