Salvation: A novel based on a true story is the story of two girls “kidnapped” by a female evangelist in 1971. It is based on events told to author Avery Caswell by one of the children involved. Her testimony is coupled with Ms. Caswell’s research. In 1971, the United States was involved in the Viet Nam war and the Civil Rights movement including such civil rights groups such as the Crusade for Voters and the NAACP. These events are woven into the fabric of Salvation as are the marginalization, the economic deprivation, and the disenfranchisement of blacks and visions of a dual America, one for whites and another subculture for blacks. Salvation, though, doesn’t dwell on these issues but presents them as a backdrop to the story of the two girls.
Del Munro, the single mother of four children, is chronically short of funds. Even with two jobs, she is frequently unable to feed her family. She and her older children often wish for a “vacation” at the beach. When neighbors take off for two weeks, that dream becomes more intense. Thus, when Mother Franklin, a morbidly obese evangelist, offers to take the two girls (Willie June, age nine, and Glory, age seven) on such a vacation, Del agrees. She assumes the girls will return in two weeks. Money changes hands which Del hides in her closet. It’s never clear whether Del sells her children or if the money exchanged was a thank you for Del housing and feeding Mother Franklin during a stop on her evangelical tour. When the girls don’t return, Del begins to regret her decision. She calls all the appropriate governmental agencies but is brushed off. The police and FBI aren’t interested in the fate of two black children. Eventually her boss hires a private investigator, Charlie Banks, to track down the girls. Mother Franklin’s entourage tours the South, moving from downtrodden church to downtrodden church, fleecing the congregations with false prophesies. Glory’s and Willie June essentially become child slaves, caring for Mother Franklin.
It took me a while to be able to read the dialect without having to stop and translate every sentence into standard English. Though written in a rather distant third person point of view, Caswell brings Willie June’s and the PI’s point of view into play using an imaginary diary and his investigative reports respectively. Those reports often reiterate what the reader has already learned, so in places Salvation was somewhat repetitive. I believe that the child represented by Glory gave her account of the happenings to the author, but Glory plays a diminished role in the novel. I wonder if the story might have been stronger if the author had written about the two girls in a tighter point of view.
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