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Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite
In Opal by Jo Ann Kiser, Opal Beauleigh grows up beside Sarvis Creek in Kentucky with one ambition: becoming an artist. At fifteen, marriage to Wendell Ferguson takes her away from the home she knows, while his search for work carries their family farther from Kentucky. As Opal raises their children, drawing remains the part of herself she keeps private, even as formal study keeps slipping beyond reach. Years pass before she begins to consider what it would take to pursue the life she once imagined for herself. With Wendell growing older beside her, Opal begins asking how much room remained inside the life she had built for the girl who wanted to paint, after decades spent believing that part of her would have to wait.
Jo Ann Kiser’s Opal is an Appalachian literary family saga that makes domestic life feel wonderfully eventful, with a warmth that comes from how closely Kiser understands the people in it. Opal’s kindness gives her easy appeal, and she is really someone we want the best for. Kiser moves across decades so naturally that each shift feels connected to the life already established. Her visual writing is especially lovely at Baltimore’s wartime Camden Station, where soldiers appear small beneath the cavernous ceiling, then again in an Ohio kitchen after Wendell’s birthday dinner, where a ruby-throated hummingbird feeding outside catches the eye. Opal watching Jeanette manage a calf birth gives female capability a quiet certainty, while Wendell reaching from his hospital bed to comfort Opal reveals tenderness naturally. Readers of Lee Smith would very much enjoy the warmth found in this Appalachian family portrait.
