Half-Truths and Semi-Miracles

by Anne Tyler

The first thing I tell people is, I’m just an ordinary woman. I’m just like you.

Susanna has an incredible gift: she can heal ailments with just the touch of her hand.  People travel from far and wide based on their faith in her abilities. But Susanna’s power only works in certain cases—it’s a semi-miracle. And as she grows into a woman, and tries to build a life of her own, her calling to fix and cure becomes more of a burden than she could ever have imagined. Why is she able to take people’s pain away sometimes, and not others, not when she needs to most of all? With the balm of time, and the wisdom of experience, Susanna must learn to live with the mysterious nature of her miracle.
Available to readers for the first time since its initial publication, this is a wry and moving story by an American master.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Literary Fiction, Adult Fiction, Ebooks

28 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 29, 2018

About the author

Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated at nineteen from Duke University and went on to do graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University. She has published 20 novels, her debut novel being If Morning Ever Comes in (1964). Her eleventh novel, Breathing Lessons , was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Reviews

[Larry H · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm between 3.5 and 4 stars, so I'll round up.

"The first thing I tell people is, I'm just an ordinary woman. I'm just like you, I say, I can see they don't believe me."

When she was 17 years old, on what seemed like just a regular afternoon, Susanna discovered she had an exceptional ability. While caring for her aunt, who was suffering from a migraine, Susanna rubbed her forehead, and—amazingly—her pain was gone. She healed her.

Word of Susanna's ability travels fast, much to her chagrin. People begin to travel from near and far in the hopes that Susanna can heal them. But while people say that Susanna's power is God-given, she isn't quite sure. If God is granting her the ability to heal people, why does she fail sometimes? Is it her shortcoming, a lesson God is trying to teach her, or is the person somehow to blame?

The power to heal has changed Susanna's life profoundly. In this short story, famed author Anne Tyler paints a portrait of a woman shouldering an overwhelming burden. She cannot understand why she can't heal everyone, and why when she so desperately needs to call on her ability, she doesn't succeed, and it leaves her questioning why she was chosen to tread such an arbitrary, often thankless path.

Anne Tyler has been one of my favorite authors since the 1980s, so any opportunity to read her work is such a treat. Half-Truths and Semi-Miracles is poignant and compelling, and once again, Tyler has created a memorable character. However, the story was so short it almost seemed truncated. I wanted more time with Susanna, more time to share her struggles and see how her life was affected.

Even though I wish the story was longer, it's still a strong example of Tyler's storytelling talent. If you think about it, it's essentially a literary amuse-bouche to whet our palates until her new novel comes out in July! Can't wait!

NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

See all of my reviews at itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com, or check out my list of the best books I read in 2017 at https://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-best-books-i-read-in-2017.html.

[Angela M · Rating 5 out of 5]

I suspect this was an easy to come by galley, perhaps to whet our appetite for Tyler’s new book, Clock Dance to be published in July. I’ve already read the book, so for me the lure was simply that this was written by Anne Tyler. I’m a fan and have been for a long time. My attraction to her characters and novels is that they are about ordinary people, sometimes quirky, living ordinary lives as most of us do, while managing the things that fate throws in our way. This was a little different because Susanna who wants us to believe at the outset the same of her, is different than most of us. She is a healer, actually a sometimes healer. “The first thing I tell people is, I’m just an ordinary woman.” This is a short story, only 24 pages long, so I won’t say more, except that any fan of Anne Tyler will be interested in knowing if Susanna is right.

I received a copy of this story from Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group through NetGalley.

[TarHeelReader · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars to Half-Truths and Semi-Miracles, a short story by Anne Tyler! 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Huge Anne Tyler fan checking in. We like to claim her as a North Carolina author because she grew up in Raleigh. I read everything she writes, though she is another author where I hoard some books unread because that’s how I roll. Delayed gratification.

I did not delay reading this short story because I received an advanced review copy, and it was my pleasure to read about Susanna.

Susanna is a healer...but only sometimes. Her gift works occasionally, but not when she wants it to work most of all. In that way, the gift becomes mysterious and even a painful burden.

Anne Tyler’s touch is present throughout this short story. If you are a fan, this is a must-read. If you aren’t a fan, I think you’ll become one.

Thank you to Anne Tyler, Knopf/Doubleday, and Netgalley for the ARC. Half-Truths and Semi-Miracles will be available on May 29, 2018.

My reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com

[PattyMacDotComma · Rating 4 out of 5]

4★ (Read Oct 2018)
“To tell the truth, I am not much for the shouting kind of religion . . . But I did want to do what I could.”

Susanna is one of three sisters, the first two of whom marry and drift away, living normal lives, we understand. When she was young and her Aunt Eunice was in bed with a migraine, Susanna placed her cold hands on her aunt’s forehead to cool her off.

“It seemed my hand needed to be laid there, it seemed all that coolness was begging to be poured into somebody.”

Migraine gone – forever! Miracle! Well, that’s what people said. Susanna just thought it was a fluke, but as people started coming to her father’s pharmacy to find her, she ‘treated’ many other people, some with equally startling results.

She is pressured into appearing at tent meetings (the shouting kind of religion) and reluctantly allows herself to be covered in long white cheesecloth. She’s not happy about that, but she feels she must help and would have been a nurse, had she had the chance.

She wonders where the pain and illness goes. Into her? If, as some said, her hands were an instrument of God, should she still be using them for normal things, like blowing her nose?

This short story gives us a sense of her whole life and how she (and we) deal with the expectations of others.

It’s as relevant today, shouting religion and all, as when it was first published in Cosmopolitan in 1974.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing for the preview copy.

[Phrynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a solid Anne Tyler fan so when I came across this short story I just had to read it. She really writes beautifully and her characters always resonate one way or another.

In Half-Truths and Semi-Miracles Susannah is definitely original in that she is a healer. Or at least a sometimes healer. She lays her hands on the sick and they may be instantly healed, they may heal slowly or they may find nothing happens at all. This all causes a certain notoriety which turns her life upside down.

The reader is left to judge the half truths and semi miracles which occur. I found it fascinating.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

When she is seventeen, Susannah discovers she has a unique gift. She can heal by the laying of her hands. Of course, her life changes immeasurably, people come from far and wide. She eventually marries, a man who calls her an angel. Eventually though in a very personal way, she learns the limits of her gift.

I read quite a few short stories, so for me this was good, but it is hard to wow me with shorts. They either have to be very original, very different or absolutely astonidhing. I love Tyler's writing and her insights into people and what makes them tick. Those talents aree present here.

[*TUDOR^QUEEN* · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you so much to Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group who provided this advance reader copy via NetGalley.

Anne Tyler has been my favorite author ever since I accidentally received her book "Breathing Lessons" back in the 80s from The Book of the Month Club. From that point forward, every time I spotted a new Tyler release I bought it without a second thought. She has an exquisite and uncanny knack of writing about ordinary people doing ordinary things on an ordinary day and making it so thought-provoking and engaging. In the last five years I was gifted one of her more recent offerings and found myself "stuck" in the book, for the first time not connecting with the story. It was very unsettling... kind of like how you loved a certain show when you grew up and then you watched it again after decades and lost that special feeling you once had. Then you ask yourself, was it you that changed? Now I'm a couple of books behind from her recent releases like "A Blue Spool of Thread" and "Vinegar Girl" which I intend to read at some point, hoping to bond with her works after the one "flop" I experienced.

So, when I approached this short story amounting to just 24 pages, I was certainly intrigued as to whether I would get that "old Anne Tyler" feeling like stepping into a pair of comfortable old shoes. First of all, I have no knowledge of Tyler ever releasing short stories, nor do I ever seek out reading the "short" genre myself. However, my interest was immediately piqued when I read in the prologue that it was originally published in 1974 in Cosmopolitan magazine. That brought me back to the old stomping grounds of my youth and my appetite was whet for some vintage Tyler.

Well, I am happy to say that this was Anne Tyler at her best. This was a story about a teenage girl named Susanna, the daughter of a pharmacist during the depression. She and her sister take turns helping out her father in the store, and he is very kind and compassionate in helping people get the pharmaceuticals they need despite lack of funds during this time. Susanna one day realizes she has a healing gift. She is very humble about this discovery and insists to everyone, "I'm just like you, I'm no different than you!" as she holds out the hands that to others impart a miraculous and perhaps Godly gift. I won't say much more because this is a very quick read, but I highly recommend it to both fans of Anne Tyler and the short story genre.

[Esil · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

A little dose of Anne Tyler is always a good thing. This is a short story about an aging faith healer. It turns out to be lonely work. Entertaining and well written, although I think I prefer her full length novels. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read a complimentary copy.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Half-Truths and Semi-Miracles’ (2018) by Anne Tyler – is a delightful short story/novelette, which is brilliantly written and is very much Tyler at her best; at the height of her writing powers.

Coming in a mere 24 pages, it is astonishing how Tyler seemingly effortlessly creates a character – Susanna Spright, the world she inhabits and a story so rounded, so complete in every way in so very few pages – this is clearly testament to Tyler’s consummate skills as a writer.

‘Half-Truths’ is the story of our main protagonist Susanna Spright and her life as a ‘healer’ as someone who ‘lays on hands’. As ever, Tyler has given us a very compelling and engaging story and despite its’ brevity, a very complete and satisfying short story.

Excellent – recommended.

[Tooter · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Stars

[Cheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

’Aunt Eunice was a taking-charge kind, always running around organizing some committee or church group—but here she lay all puffy-faced and tear-stained, stretched out on her precious crocheted bedspread with her shoes still on. I said, “Aunt Eunice, honey, don’t you want to get more comfortable?” She didn’t answer. I wished I could think of something real to do for her. I laid the compress on her head. I took her shoes off and covered her with an afghan. I adjusted the curtains a bit. Then I sat down in the rocking chair and looked at my hands, which still smelled of lilacs from the last cream I’d tried. Of course the wrinkles were as deep as ever. My little gold finger ring was buried in them, like wire grown into a tree trunk. But it came to me how cool my palms felt—wouldn’t they soothe poor Aunt Eunice? I reached over and pressed her forehead. It seemed my hand needed to be laid there, it seemed all that coolness was begging to be poured into somebody. Then Aunt Eunice said, “Oh!” and her eyes flew open. I snatched my hand away. “It’s gone,” she told me. “What?” “My headache’s gone.”’

This is the fourth book I’ve read by Anne Tyler, although it is more of a short story than a full length book at 29 pages.

Susanna’s Aunt Eunice shares the story of her healing, and word spreads quickly. Susanna finds it hard to believe she’s been given this gift of healing. At first she shies away from it, but when pressed by others she relents to at least try, but first cautions them that it may not work, 'The first thing I tell people is, I’m just an ordinary woman.' This is something she believes, having no real understanding or control of what she is able to do, believing that if she is healing others, the power originates elsewhere.

[John Gilbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very different from any Ann Tyler book, short novella about spirituality and healing and the experience of a woman who healed many, but couldn't heal her son. 3 stars.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anne Tyler has such a talent evoking understated, and thus honest, emotion with her writing. As a young woman Susanna discovers an unexpected talent for healing people. It confuses her and often feels like almost a burden because she’s afraid it’s *this* time she will fail and sometimes she does. Her emotional maturity has begun to catch up to her talent when tragedy strikes sending her life into chaos. Half-Truths is a strong story but of course it ends far too soon. It’s worth yourreading time however.

Thank you to the publisher for providing an e-copy.

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

★★★✰✰ 3 stars

A short tale that is very 'Anne Tyler'. Although this story has a certain magical element it is incorporated in a very ordinary way. This makes a good 'in-between' read as it is easy to read and fairly enjoyable.

[Lolly K Dandeneau · Rating 4 out of 5]

via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
'Peculiar thoughts used to strike me back then. I wondered: When I cured the sickness where did it go?'

Susanna’s gift enables her to perform healing miracles for the ill, but sometimes it just doesn’t work, maybe for a time it will give relief to some but not full recovery, hence Semi-Miracles. The gift is both blessing and curse, as loved ones drift out of her orbit uncomfortable with her strange abilities. Strangers travel from all over with the faith that she can heal them, even if she doesn’t always believe in herself or quite understand it.

The heart of the story is in who she cannot heal and what it costs her. This is a short, tender vintage story by Anne Tyler that is a little sweet ache to tide fans over until July when Clock Dance is out.

Available Now

Knopf Doubleday Publishing

[Cathryn Conroy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published in December 1974 in Cosmopolitan magazine, this Kindle Single is a short story by Anne Tyler about a faith healer who is skeptical of her extraordinary gifts. And while her unusual life story is the gist of this tale, it seems to me that it also represents how many of us feel about our innate gifts—not quite sure why we have them and what good they really will do.

Told in the first person when she is 60 years old, Susanna insists in the first sentence that she just an ordinary woman. No one, of course, believes her. Susanna has a gift of placing her hands on sick and ailing people and healing them. Well, most of the time it works. She calls them half-truths and semi-miracles. Susanna first noticed her healing gift when she was a teenager and by placing her hands on her Aunt Eunice's head during a particularly bad migraine, the headache disappeared.

Beginning during the Great Depression, the story is set deep in the country where money is tight, religious revivals are frequent, and word travels fast. Susanna becomes a fixture at the tent revivals, healing the masses who travel long distances to have her touch them. She refuses to take money, and never quite understands what it is she does—or more importantly, how she does it. But one day something truly horrific happens to someone Susanna loves dearly, and her healing gifts don't work, sending her life in a tailspin.

This is an early example of Anne Tyler's storytelling genius, specifically the imaginative knack she has of taking something very simple and weaving a complex story filled with whole truths—not half-truths—about the human existence.

[Alona · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes people need to believe that there is some external power that can heal and lessen the pain.

[Laura Spira · Rating 3 out of 5]

One can't help but feel sympathy for Susanna's burden but this story of an ageing faith healer is rather sad. It's intriguing but I prefer Anne Tyler's longer books where the characters are fleshed out more. I don't know when this short story was written but I have a feeling that it's a previously published work that has been republished to capitalise on Anne Tyler's popularity. Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC.

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best short story is one you wish kept going.

[Kris (My Novelesque Life) · Rating 4 out of 5]

RATING: 4 STARS
​(I received an ARC from the NETGALLEY​)​
(Review Not on Blog)

I love Anne Tyler's writing and she does not disappoint in this short story. This is perfect for newbies to Tyler in that you can get a taste of how she writes. And perfect for any fans like me in that it tides you over till a new book comes out. There are several of my favourite authors that I take my time in going through their books so I have something on hand when I need it.

[Jeimy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a story about a healer who is grappling with understanding her gift. It comes to her when she is young and her family and friends seem to think her power is God-given. Susanna herself is not sure. Ultimately, like the protagonist, the reader must make of this what one wills.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review to follow!

[Lorraine Robins · Rating 5 out of 5]

As usual, Anne Tyler does not disappoint. Great Kindle single!

[Toni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread this to bring continuity to my brain. Reminds me once again why I love Anne Tyler's writing. Just a simple but lovely short story that speaks volumes. (wish I could be more original, 😛)

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short story follows a humble girl who discovers that she has the God-given ability to lay hands on people and heal them. It was easy to see where the author got the spark for the idea. Following a young girl with an ability that so many would find skeptical but so many would find valuable. The story follows her quickly through adolescence to adulthood, marriage and even motherhood, all the way to her 60s. I found it fascinating how the author was able to show us so much about the character through so few pages. I’ve always wanted to read Anne Tyler, and this was a beautiful introduction.

[Paula Hartharn-Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just a short story but ok.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought provoking

Miracles are what we believe they are. Enjoyable story told in typical Anne Tyler fashion. Always a unexpected turn of events that makes the reader think.

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another wonder story from a favorite author. Highly recommend.

[Marleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a short story, this was exceptionally well written. I haven't read anything before by Anne Tyler, but I like her style.
In Half-Truths and Semi-Miracles, we encounter Susana, a young woman, daughter of a pharmacist in a small rural town, somewhere in the US, in earlier decades of the previous century. There's nothing detailed or defined, which gives the story a pinch of mystery. Susana discovers in her teens that she's a healer, laying hands on people and curing them from their aches and diseases. But she can't heal everyone. When later her little 5-year old boy gets overrun by a car in the street, she's not able to rescue him, leaving the young parents bereft and eventually Susana's loving husband leaves her.
This was more an atmosphere piece than a story with a beginning and an end. It's about accepting your lot in life and making the best of it, if that's possible.
I enjoyed it.

[Terris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this short story about a woman who had the ability to heal people of their physical ills....sometimes.
Anne Tyler is one of my favorite authors, and I have read all of her books! But this wasn't my favorite. I don't think it was quite long enough to get a full characterization that would turn Susanna into one of Tyler's unusually quirky personalities. And it didn't have much of an ending. That said, it is a short story, and they don't always have a full story or ending, IMO.
I'm glad I read it, but I'm looking much more forward (that sounds awkward!) to her new book "Clock Dance."