The Welsh Fasting Girl

Set in the 1860s, this moving novel from O’Connor (Like China) exhumes the tragic mystery of a famous child who claims not to need nourishment. Journalist Christine Thomas crosses the Atlantic to escape the stagnation of her life in New York and to judge for herself the veracity of claims about the Welsh Fasting Girl. Twelve-year-old Sarah Jacobs had reportedly not eaten in 16 months out of her own volition, which some claim serves as proof of divine intervention in a politically, economically, and religiously divisive time in Wales. What begins as Christine’s quest to sort fact from fiction becomes a struggle for justice on Sarah’s behalf, both before and after the girl’s highly publicized death. The narrative combines Christine’s journals, contemporaneous reports (real and fictitious) by experts and journalists, and the remembrances of Sarah’s youngest sister, Margaret. O’Connor’s description of Sarah’s condition and Christine’s motivations as a concerned mother are highlights, even as the book’s latter half hinges on the minutiae of inconsistent reports from Sarah’s doctors and repetitive reinterpretations of the last days of Sarah’s life. Although hampered by a sluggish plot, O’Connor’s bleak, powerful story serves as an affecting homage to a girl whose community failed to protect her. (May)