Resilience Knows No Gender: A Savannah Story

A Savannah native approaching retirement from a medical career returns home to write his sabbatical book about how some physicians find resilience and avoid burnout. An encounter with Mae, a mysterious Gullah woman, takes him into magical adventures covering almost 3 centuries based in the marshes and historic landmarks of his hometown. The sights, sounds, history, and smells of Savannah are irresistible, and qualify the town as a full-fledged character in this story. He ventures to partake of some of Mae's root doctor tea and is propelled into dreamscapes that blur time and reality. During one of these walkabouts, he meets Jock who is working as a Haitian vodou healer during the Siege of Savannah, one of the bloodiest battles of the American Revolution.

He discovers that the modern understanding of voodoo is an inaccurate, twisted view of the rich West African vodou rituals that share some symbolism with his Catholic tradition. In the assault on the British occupiers by a multinational force led by the French, so many are killed and wounded that the French appear prepared to withdraw from their alliance with the colonists. Knowing that this would doom the quest for a new American nation, the narrator joins with Jock to seek the key healing element. Gender conformity is a central theme of this book, and a remarkable encounter with General Casimir Pulaski provides a truly startling discovery, setting the stage for this capstone of the Healing Savannah trilogy. Resilience is found in the most surprising places.