The Last Carolina Girl
Leah Payne lives with her widowed father in a hamlet in North Carolina, close to the ocean. The shack that serves as their home is owned by the Barna family, her lumberjack father’s employer. When the novel opens in 1935, thirteen-year-old Leah enjoys the nearby woods, tolerates school, and chums around with the Barnas’ son Jesse. Her peaceful life soon ends during a devastating storm. The state of North Carolina places Leah with a foster family, the Griffins, far from the shore. Leah hopes the Griffins will incorporate her into their lives. Instead, Mrs. Griffin refuses to send Leah to school and treats her as a servant. Though pining to return to Jesse and the Barna homestead, Leah tries to make the best of her situation, until Mrs. Griffin arranges for a medical procedure that alters the course of Leah’s life.
Megan Church chooses to tell Leah’s story in the first person, capturing her spirit and pulling us into her struggles. Although we suspect that disaster awaits Leah, Church wisely understates foreshadowing. Only halfway through the book do we begin to guess at the specifics, and only toward the end do we learn of the secret the Griffins harbor.
Readers may occasionally wish for more about motivations, particularly about why the Barna family does not keep Leah with them and why Mrs. Griffin grew into a mean-spirited woman. Fans of historical fiction, while appreciating the context relating to an appalling aspect of medical history, may expect more about the Great Depression. Most of the action of the novel occurs in 1935, yet the Griffins own two cars and nice clothing. These are minor matters in a riveting and well-crafted novel.
