Our author can't seem to make up her mind on a fairly important issue: Is she "Mary Rickert" or just plain "M. Rickert"? Under the abbreviated M., she has published a set of haunting short stories considered to be among the very best of fantasy. With The Memory Garden, her first novel, she makes her bid to enter the literary mainstream, enlarging her name and her imaginative landscape in one grand stroke. Best of all, in a brilliant alchemical turn, Rickert transforms the lead-weight problem of indecisive identities into storytelling gold in this bewitching marvel of a book.

"Bewitching." Yes, there be witches here. Indeed, the opening line of Macbeth might well serve as an epigraph for this novel: "When shall we three meet again?" Here, the three crones are Nan, Mavis and Ruthie, brought together for the first time in 60 years, split apart all those decades ago by a deadly tragedy for which they feel (for which they were) responsible, a horror that has determined the course of their lives.

And there be ghosts aplenty, wandering Nan's back garden, together with much herbal lore and a child left on a doorstep as in a fairy tale, born with a magic-bestowing caul over her face. Shakespeare applies once more: To be a witch, or not to be? That is the question. Bay (a powerful herb) is the name of that child abandoned on the doorstep. She becomes a young woman racked by doubts and fears about her own identity. Like all adolescent girls, Bay just wants to be "normal." But as Nan's charge—and on account of that uncanny veil over her newborn face—that can never be. Bay can see the ghosts in the backyard without even knowing that they're ghosts, so natural is her supernatural gift. She must confront the burden of her elders' knowledge, at long last conjured into wisdom.

Bay has to decide who she really is. A witch? Or not a witch? No matter. Not when you have discovered your true place in the world. In this poignant motion of the spirit, Rickert stays alongside her own fictional creation every faltering and courageous step of the way.

 

This article was originally published in the May 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

With its fairy-tale qualities, this debut novel is sure to charm readers. Nan has raised her daughter, Bay, in their isolated, rural home. Now a teenager, Bay is unaware that her mother has held several secrets from her past. But during one summer, Nan decides to come to terms with this, for her sake as well as for Bay's. Nan invites two girlhood friends for a weekend, though these pals haven't seen one another in decades. Nan must share with her chums, Ruthie and Mavis, the unusual details of how Bay came to be her daughter. The festive weekend is complicated by the arrival of a few other guests, each with their own tales to reveal. Much of the story takes place in Nan's gardens, where her lovely plants and flowers are almost as enchanting and developed as the novel's characters. VERDICT Readers who enjoy the magical realism of novels by Sarah Addison Allen, Laura Esquivel, and Alice Hoffman will savor Rickert's mesmerizing and magical novel of friendship and family. Each chapter's heading includes a brief botanical description of a particular flower or plant and these details also encompass folktale and mythological information.—Andrea Tarr, Corona P.L., CA

In her first novel, Rickert, whose Map of Dreams was a World Fantasy Award winner for short fiction, unwinds the magic and mystery of a mother and daughter and three old friends, all at the fragile juncture of truth and forgiveness. At the heart of the story are 64-year-old Nan, rumored to be a witch, and her 16-year-old adopted daughter, Bay, bound by a carefully guarded secret that's revealed during a weekend reunion of Nan's childhood friends, Mavis and Ruthie. Ghosts live in the garden of Nan and Bay—an angry boy killed in a car crash, an abused girl who died after a botched abortion, a disgraced neighbor—and Bay can see them. Only her beloved Nan, dying Mavis, and tortured Ruthie can explain to Bay the melancholic restlessness of the ghosts, and the history that is connected to Bay's origin. But in the end, Bay has the magic that heals and comforts Nan with the realization that "t's one thing to be forgiven by someone else, another to forgive yourself." Bay's story is just beginning here, and Rickert marks a clear path for a sequel to this rich fantasy. "All I can do is teach her the basics and watch what she does," Nan says, as she marvels at Bay's supernatural talents. With this tale, Ricket can build an audience that will marvel at her witchy talents. Agent: Howard Morhaim, Howard Morhaim Literary Agency. (May)