“For a moment, Augusta could remember what it felt like to believe – not in the magic of witches or fairies, but in the magic of women who knew how to heal; the magic of women in the quiet of their kitchens, who could sweeten a bitter woman’ s heart or soothe a man’s temper with a cup of tea.”
The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern by Lynda Cohen Loigman ( St. Martin’s Press 2024) has whispers of Remarkably Bright Creatures and Big Fish with the slightest hint of When Women Were Dragons and Lessons in Chemistry. It’s a historical novel of folk remedies, science, women in male dominated fields, second chances, and found families – and it’s all wrapped in magic that smells like chicken soup. It’s cozy and warm, but if I think about it too hard, I think it’s the saddest book ever, just wrapped in warm and fuzzy trappings.
Augusta Stern, a pharmacist forced into retirement after lying about her age for a decade, relocates from New York to Rallentando Springs, a popular senior community in Florida that comes equipped with a pool. (Her only requirement.) She moves in just before her 80th birthday and is still settling in when a blast from the past shows up in the form of Irving Rivkin, the boy who’d broken her heart six decades ago. (Augusta can hold a grudge.)
The novel, set in 1987, frequently jumps back to 1922. The reader gets some of the grief and struggles for Augusta and her sister when their mother dies, but the focus of the section is more on Esther, their father’s old-world aunt who brings traditional medicine into the home and butts heads with Augusta’s pharmacist father. Esther remarks that if she’d been a man, she’d have been called an apothecary; instead, she was seen as a witch. Augusta finds herself determined to become a bridge between her great aunt and father, but also between the traditional medicines and the new. But Augusta makes a mistake, and Irving marries someone else, and Esther dies. She abandons the old and throws herself into pharmacy school, having to fight tooth and nail just to be acknowledged and respected.
Slowly, almost too slowly, the novel reveals what really happened back in 1922. The writing is sharp – it’s funny and really quite cozy. You’ll love Augusta, who is a spitfire from day one. But when I think about her life and how different it would have been, it guts me. The ending doesn’t redeem that for me. Not after all that time. At least Irving had the twins. And that’s why if I think about it too hard, it’s the saddest book. (So, I just don’t think about it too hard.)
Read this book.
A Girl Named Tommi 