FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 'An important American writer . . . The Healing examines precisely what its title announces: healing from silence, from physical attacks and treachery, from spiritual and cultural isolation, from the pain of old-fashioned, aching, bluesy love . . . It is also a very funny book' Valerie Sayers, New York Times 'Gayl Jones's work remains essential and vital; I will be rereading her catalogue for the rest of my life' Kima Jones, Nylon Harlan Jane Eagleton is a faith healer, travelling to small towns, converting sceptics, restoring minds and bodies. But before that she was a rock star's manager, and before that a beautician. She's had a fling with her rock star's ex-husband and a rich African-German racehorse dealer; along the way she's somehow lost her own husband, a medical anthropologist now traveling with a medicine woman in Africa. Harlan tells her story from the end backwards, drawing us constantly deeper into her world and the mystery at the heart of her tale - the story of her first healing.