Customer Reviews

A Savage Wisdom

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

A riveting read, full of evocative imagery and shocking secrets. Fine pacing and narrative flow make this one hard to put down.

I loved the liberal use of historical details throughout the story. I was especially captivated by the depiction of 1930s New Orleans. The architecture, food, music, dance, clothing, slang, and street people of the era are all brought to life. And the seamier side of the city is there as well, with the burlesque shows and illegal doings and well-known shady characters. Delicious!

A Savage Wisdom is an imaginative reconstruction of the legend of Toni Jo Henry. She murdered a man on Valentine's Day 1940, and was executed in 1942 in Louisiana's traveling electric chair known as "Little Sizzler".

The book begins with the murder. Toni Jo shoots "Harold Nevers" in a Louisiana rice field. Then the story goes back in time to 1938, and the events that led to the crime.

In 1938, Toni Jo Henry is a bored small-town waitress. Harold Nevers is a predatory charmer with an eye for beautiful women and a nose for exploitable weaknesses. Before long he sweeps Toni Jo off to New Orleans with promises of adventure and unimaginable fortunes. Things start off well enough. Harold shows her a New Orleans-style good time, and she works hard in his new restaurant. She enjoys the excitement and novelty of her new life and is hopelessly in love with Harold. As the months go by, however, Toni Jo's dream life begins to crumble.

Harold gradually, sneakily starts making her over into the sort of lady he wants her to be. Playing on her eagerness to please him, he begins with small demands, changing her name to "Annie Beatrice" and asking her to alter her appearance. As time goes on, he begins using "Annie" in increasingly demeaning ways, often without her knowledge. He makes use of everything he knows about her to break her down and transform her into his commodity. She is addicted to Harold, but she mistakes that addiction for love, with tragic consequences.
The characterization of Harold Nevers is one of the great strengths of the book. He's a convincing liar and a professional manipulator. He uses a combination of badgering, withholding, and salesmanship to keep Toni Jo under his control and convince her that she really wants to fulfill his humiliating plans for her.

Eventually, Toni Jo escapes Harold's clutches and begins a new life. But she unexpectedly encounters him many months later, and commits the murder for which she becomes notorious. When the murder is recounted at this point, it looks completely different than it did at the start of the book. Toni Jo's rage now seems justified, and her temporary loss of control is understandable.

During her murder trials and jail time, it becomes clear that Toni Jo Henry has learned a thing or two from Harold Nevers about lies and manipulation. She has become a hardened woman, out to serve only her own needs. She has a date with death and nothing left to lose. Even after she's long dead, there are reverberations and shattering revelations for those left behind.

This is one of those "cant-wait-to-turn-the-page", even take it to the bathroom with you kind of books. The author painted the characters on a canvas that prompts one to examine and ponder all the details and then take another look and question what part of each character could be extracted from your own personality under any given circumstance. It prompts one to look at human nature in its raw and exposed state and find that propinquity that one dares owning up to. A Savage Wisdom

From the moment a hitchhiker accepts a ride from a man and his sleeping wife on a February evening in 1940 until a young woman accepts her connection to murder and deception in 1963, it is impossible to put this book down.
Norman German took me on Toni Jo's wild ride and I was right there with her, unable to warn the naive beauty away from her dangerous, seductive suitor.

I loved this book, but started reading it with the misconception that it was non fiction. By the end of the book i was breathless at the astonishing twists and turns. Somehow I could not believe it could be true. Sure enough after doing some research, I was disappointed to find that the whole book is a work of fiction using 1 incident in history, that being the first execution of a woman by the electric chair in Louisana. Everything is false from Toni Jo's name at birth, to her total innocent childhood. In the book at 20 she was as pure as the driven snow, living with her mother and working as a waitress. In reality her mother died when she was 6 and by her mid to late teens she was a prostitute addicted to cocain, marihuana and alcohol. Even the man she killed was not the same man as the book states. The reason for her being electrocuted instead of hanged is total fabrication. Not sure how this can be listed as non fiction since there is nothing true in the book. The notion that she was pregnant in prison and gave birth to a child who was adopted later had an affair with her own father (deputy sheriff who later ran for govenor) and gave birth to his baby is untrue. Geeze!!

Norman German has crafted a gripping fictional version of the Lake Charles, Louisiana, story that's perhaps best known throughout the country: the story of Toni Jo Henry. Henry, arrested in Lake Charles for a murder she committed in the outskirts of the city, was jailed and executed in the Lake Charles jail, thereby becoming the first and only woman to die in the electric chair in Louisiana.
German significantly alters the historical Henry and her story as a way of coming up with a story less grimly sordid than that of the actual crime and punishment. While there is sordid material in German's book, he manages to create in his fictional Henry an almost transcendent murderess who has a crystal clear understanding of the motivation behind her crime: her inability to accept a world run by powerful men who are so corrupt they can transform a naïf into a methodical avenger.
By the end of the novel, she's become so well educated about and understanding of the ways of the world that she can spin out practical aphorisms that would do Machiavelli or LaRochefoucauld proud: "There's danger in trusting everyone," she writes. "Sincerity can always be subjected to proof."
And why, come to think of it, isn't sincerity always subjected to proof? Well, until we can all answer that question, we'll need novels like German's that probe human behavior without flinching and describe the phenomenon with honesty undiluted by the wish to escape through platitudes, formulaic optimism, idealization and clanky happy endings.
-- Brad Goins, from the review in Lagniappe Magazine, August 21, 2008

I bought this for my new baby Kindle and was at first disappointed to find out this isn't exactly TC. It was inspired by the murder of a salesman by a young Louisiana gal and it caught my attention with all the five star reviews. Well, it was worth the price and I even bought one for a friend. While I admit, I never made it through Capote's "In Cold Blood" this never lost my attention. Not only are all the characters so real you either know them in real life or wish you did, the story is just superb. Highly erotic and full of wishful thinking, Toni Jo is a real "cock-eyed optimist" who tangles with the devil. This book could really be added to college reading lists and so forth. BRAVO!!!

Not since the ONION FIELD have we met a more compelling opening chapter. German raises the question, "What would you do for the one you love?" and answers it with a savage wisdom of its own. Next to Capote, Mailer, and O'Brien, German sits on my shelf as the model of literary fact (or creative non-fiction). As a professor of creative writing, I will put it on my required reading list for acquiring the art.

Frank Gaik, Professor of Creative Writing, Cerritos College

I really enjoyed this book, but still find it rather difficult to believe the ending. I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it, but it is almost too incredible to comprehend. Regardless of whether this is a completely true story or embellished, it was extremely well crafted. At first, I believed this book was actually written during the late 40's or early 50's when these events took place. All I can say is that this is NOT your typical true crime novel. Highly recommended for those of you who want more than just a bare bones accounting of true crime, as the author weaves a truly intricate story that is fascinating and difficult to put down.

I have never cried at a true crime novel before. The author did a fabulous job of putting you in the heart of the characters so well that you know just how they feel. This isnt just a true crime story ~ but a love story. And the follow up 20 years later is heartwrenching. This will be one of my all time faves!

I highly recommend this book for all to read. The best true crime story ever. I finished feeling sorry for Toni Jo Henry who was truly the victim of this crime.