Snake Oil delves into both personal memoir and traditional history, explaining how Becca Stevens, an Episcopal chaplain at Vanderbilt's St. Augustine, came to found both Magdalene, a network of homes for abused women, and Thistle Farms, the all-natural cosmetics company that both funds Magdalene and employs its residents.
Stevens refers to both enterprises as "snake oil selling," but she doesn't mean it in the pejorative sense. Before "snake oil" became a catchall term for shady characters hawking questionable remedies, she explains, it described concoctions--including oil blends containing real snake venom--known for centuries for their ability to heal a number of ills. Snake Oil uses this original meaning as both theme and metaphor. Not only does Thistle Farms create oil blends intended to soothe and heal, the very process of creating both the blends and the organization itself are powerfully healing to the women Magdalene serves.
In Snake Oil, Stevens introduces readers to the concept of healing work through her own stories about the creation of Magdalene and Thistle Farms, as well as through the stories of those who live and work there. She describes how her own childhood experiences with abuse and her father's untimely death equipped her to understand that, while many lives seem broken, no life is irredeemable. Snake Oil is a powerful testament to the limitless capacity of love and dignity to heal even the most wounded lives. --Dani Alexis Ryskamp, blogger at The Book Cricket