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The healer
Unhappy with city life and at odds with his step-father, fourteen year old Billy is sent to live in the country with his eccentric great-uncle — a powwow man and natural healer who teaches him the lore of a vanishing world.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1971
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About the author
Daniel P. Mannix
44 books62 followersDaniel Pratt Mannix IV was best known as an American author and journalist. His life was remarkably different from other writers of his generation. His career included times as a side show performer, magician, trainer of eagles and film maker.
The Grest Zadma was a stage name Mannix used as a magician. He also entertained as a sword swallower and fire eater in a traveling carnival sideshow. Magazine articles about these experiences, co-written with his wife, became very popular in 1944 and 1945.
As an author Mannix covered a wide variety of subject matter. His more than 25 books ranged from fictional animal stories for children, the natural history of animals, and adventurous accounts about hunting big game to sensational adult non-fiction topics such as a biography of the occultist Aleister Crowley, sympathetic accounts of carnival performers and sideshow freaks, and works describing, among other things, the Hellfire Club, the Atlantic slave trade, the history of torture, and the Roman games. His output of essays and articles was extensive.
The Grest Zadma was a stage name Mannix used as a magician. He also entertained as a sword swallower and fire eater in a traveling carnival sideshow. Magazine articles about these experiences, co-written with his wife, became very popular in 1944 and 1945.
As an author Mannix covered a wide variety of subject matter. His more than 25 books ranged from fictional animal stories for children, the natural history of animals, and adventurous accounts about hunting big game to sensational adult non-fiction topics such as a biography of the occultist Aleister Crowley, sympathetic accounts of carnival performers and sideshow freaks, and works describing, among other things, the Hellfire Club, the Atlantic slave trade, the history of torture, and the Roman games. His output of essays and articles was extensive.
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February 6, 2012 The Healer begins with all the promise of a dark fairy tale: Billy, a precocious child, is sent by his cold and distant step-father to live with his Uncle, a "broacher, powwowman, and healer" versed in hex magic, in the netherworlds of Pennsylvania Dutch Country.
This titular healer, Abe Zook, speaks like Yoda (which isn't really a fair comparison: this book came out years before Star Wars, and perhaps Yoda-speak is some amalgamation of Pennsylvanian Dutch?) and teaches Billy the way of his soon-to-be-lost trade: collecting herbs with magical properties, the ways of farming and tracking animals. In this rustic setting, Billy adapts to what I can imagine no modern urban-raised boy adapting to: hours spent waiting for bees to pollinate or traps to be sprung; traipses through the forest in search of rare flowers, or collecting wolf dung to ward cows from a poacher's barn. Yet Billy takes to this type of living quickly and eagerly, having felt an outcast all his life and finally finding a home of sorts in the wild, with friends like an owl named Dracula for company.
Besides all this, "The Healer" doesn't have much of a plot: Daniel Mannix (whose wikipedia entry informs me was a "an author, journalist, photographer, side-show performer, stage magician, animal trainer, and film-maker" probably best known for writing the book the Disney movie "The Fox and the Hound" was based on) is at his best when he is writing long rambles about nature, and the psychology of animals. He does the latter by adding a tinge of 60's-era psychedelia to the story. Zook tells Billy at one point,
"This is Gruddabalsen. It keeps away flies. Children call it mosquito plant. All things have two names, one for calling and one for friendly talk. So all things are really two... that you are two people. One your step-father and I see. Another is you, yourself. Mostly the two stay together, like different sides of a coin, but sometimes they seperate."
This philosophical point manifests itself in the story at various times when Billy meditates to a state of apparent out-of-bodyness, and especially when through this meditation he is able to enter the mind and body of other animals, especially a Coyote named Wolf he is enamored by but Zook fears, believing it to be "werewolfen" with an unholy connection to the boy.
Essentially, Mannix uses this psychadelia as a literary device for creating a very believable portrayal of the coyote's consciousness:
"Instantly he was aware of a world of odors, as bewildering an experience as a blind man suddenly granted sight... he could select one scent... and magnify it above the others... the odors sang to him, as though they could talk. His body odor was not merely a means of identifying him; it conjured up an image of himself... and above all an intense curiosity about himself. The curiosity surprised him, for it was a very powerful, compelling emotion that he never suspected in an animal... he found the whole scope of his human experience and reasoning powers wiped out. His thoughts came to him in combinations of patterns. It was something like turning a kaleidoscope and watching the changing symmetrical forms... within his head, Wolf carried an amazing variety of patterns which he could combine... but the patterns had to be there to begin with. Wolf could do many things with his patterns that were beyond Billy's powers, but he could not produce an original idea."
A plot, of sorts, emerges in Billy's attempts to observe and ultimately save the Coyote and his mate, a domesticated runaway dog Billy names Blackie, from various perils, including a rampaging gang of wild dogs and the game warden of the area. Billy learns hard lessons of "the way of the jungle," of the predator-prey relationship that perpetuates all living things, and ultimately must admit both Wolf and Blackie are dangers to the environment, especially when their coydog offspring become fully-grown terrors.
I enjoyed the pleasant, well-crafted depictions of Billy's "Alone in the Wilderness" lifestyle, as well as learning the details of particular lore and herbal remedies, told with folksy though serious charm by Abe Zook. Here is Zook, for example, explaining the process of an artificial bee hive to Billy:
"When the bees find they cannot get back to their old home and old queen, they will start feeding one of the brood bees in the cells royal jelly. That is a special food bees make in their heads, and how they do it not even I know. The brood bee so fed will become a queen who can lay eggs. Only a bee fed with royal jelly can become a queen; the rest are workers, who although they are females, cannot lay eggs but must work all the time. The young queen will grow and become the ruler in the new colony, and all the bees will obey her. After two weeks, I will let the workers go free. They will fly back to their old hive and take the honey for their new home. In this way I will be getting both the honey and the bees."
Ultimately, though, what separates this book from a classic is the depletion of Abe Zook as a character in the 3rd act and a rushed, too-happy and pat ending that seems, especially considering the events leading up to it, nothing more than a twisted fever dream. Nonetheless, until that dismal ending, The Healer is a surprisingly engrossing, though in no ways suspenseful, investigation of nature and a dying trade. A book to invigorate one with nature, and a pleasure to read outside in a park on a warm day.
This titular healer, Abe Zook, speaks like Yoda (which isn't really a fair comparison: this book came out years before Star Wars, and perhaps Yoda-speak is some amalgamation of Pennsylvanian Dutch?) and teaches Billy the way of his soon-to-be-lost trade: collecting herbs with magical properties, the ways of farming and tracking animals. In this rustic setting, Billy adapts to what I can imagine no modern urban-raised boy adapting to: hours spent waiting for bees to pollinate or traps to be sprung; traipses through the forest in search of rare flowers, or collecting wolf dung to ward cows from a poacher's barn. Yet Billy takes to this type of living quickly and eagerly, having felt an outcast all his life and finally finding a home of sorts in the wild, with friends like an owl named Dracula for company.
Besides all this, "The Healer" doesn't have much of a plot: Daniel Mannix (whose wikipedia entry informs me was a "an author, journalist, photographer, side-show performer, stage magician, animal trainer, and film-maker" probably best known for writing the book the Disney movie "The Fox and the Hound" was based on) is at his best when he is writing long rambles about nature, and the psychology of animals. He does the latter by adding a tinge of 60's-era psychedelia to the story. Zook tells Billy at one point,
"This is Gruddabalsen. It keeps away flies. Children call it mosquito plant. All things have two names, one for calling and one for friendly talk. So all things are really two... that you are two people. One your step-father and I see. Another is you, yourself. Mostly the two stay together, like different sides of a coin, but sometimes they seperate."
This philosophical point manifests itself in the story at various times when Billy meditates to a state of apparent out-of-bodyness, and especially when through this meditation he is able to enter the mind and body of other animals, especially a Coyote named Wolf he is enamored by but Zook fears, believing it to be "werewolfen" with an unholy connection to the boy.
Essentially, Mannix uses this psychadelia as a literary device for creating a very believable portrayal of the coyote's consciousness:
"Instantly he was aware of a world of odors, as bewildering an experience as a blind man suddenly granted sight... he could select one scent... and magnify it above the others... the odors sang to him, as though they could talk. His body odor was not merely a means of identifying him; it conjured up an image of himself... and above all an intense curiosity about himself. The curiosity surprised him, for it was a very powerful, compelling emotion that he never suspected in an animal... he found the whole scope of his human experience and reasoning powers wiped out. His thoughts came to him in combinations of patterns. It was something like turning a kaleidoscope and watching the changing symmetrical forms... within his head, Wolf carried an amazing variety of patterns which he could combine... but the patterns had to be there to begin with. Wolf could do many things with his patterns that were beyond Billy's powers, but he could not produce an original idea."
A plot, of sorts, emerges in Billy's attempts to observe and ultimately save the Coyote and his mate, a domesticated runaway dog Billy names Blackie, from various perils, including a rampaging gang of wild dogs and the game warden of the area. Billy learns hard lessons of "the way of the jungle," of the predator-prey relationship that perpetuates all living things, and ultimately must admit both Wolf and Blackie are dangers to the environment, especially when their coydog offspring become fully-grown terrors.
I enjoyed the pleasant, well-crafted depictions of Billy's "Alone in the Wilderness" lifestyle, as well as learning the details of particular lore and herbal remedies, told with folksy though serious charm by Abe Zook. Here is Zook, for example, explaining the process of an artificial bee hive to Billy:
"When the bees find they cannot get back to their old home and old queen, they will start feeding one of the brood bees in the cells royal jelly. That is a special food bees make in their heads, and how they do it not even I know. The brood bee so fed will become a queen who can lay eggs. Only a bee fed with royal jelly can become a queen; the rest are workers, who although they are females, cannot lay eggs but must work all the time. The young queen will grow and become the ruler in the new colony, and all the bees will obey her. After two weeks, I will let the workers go free. They will fly back to their old hive and take the honey for their new home. In this way I will be getting both the honey and the bees."
Ultimately, though, what separates this book from a classic is the depletion of Abe Zook as a character in the 3rd act and a rushed, too-happy and pat ending that seems, especially considering the events leading up to it, nothing more than a twisted fever dream. Nonetheless, until that dismal ending, The Healer is a surprisingly engrossing, though in no ways suspenseful, investigation of nature and a dying trade. A book to invigorate one with nature, and a pleasure to read outside in a park on a warm day.
November 23, 2024
This novel was an unexpected delight. Following Daniel P. Mannix's gritty, unflinchingly realistic animal novels, The Healer offers something closer to dark fantasy. The young protagonist, Billy, possesses a supernatural ability to meld minds with a coyote named Wolf, offering a unique twist while still rooted in Mannix’s well-known commitment to realism. Fans of The Fox and the Hound or The Last Eagle will find familiar themes and plenty of meticulous nature lore about coyotes.
Though the birth of Wolf’s coydog offspring and Billy’s desire to protect them might initially hint at conventional sentimentality, Mannix veers in an unexpected and honest direction, skillfully avoiding clichés. The ending, while a touch anticlimactic and largely happening offscreen, leans into sentimentality slightly more than Mannix’s typical fare. Additionally, while Wolf is an incredibly well-crafted character, his portrayal often overshadows Billy, leaving the human storyline occasionally weakened by comparison. Mannix’s expertise in animal psychology is so strong that his vivid animal sequences frequently outshine the human elements, with Billy’s dialogue sometimes too expository and plot-driving scenes occasionally taking a backseat to immersive animal-focused moments.
Yet, for many readers, this emphasis is part of the Mannix experience. Mannix’s novels transport readers into the minds of animals, offering a vivid, alternate perspective of the world, complete with exhilarating action and suspense that ranks among the best in nature writing. The Healer is a perfect read for those wanting an authentic Mannix experience with a touch of fantasy and a human viewpoint. Mannix remains in a league of his own, masterfully blending nature, realism, and adventure.
Though the birth of Wolf’s coydog offspring and Billy’s desire to protect them might initially hint at conventional sentimentality, Mannix veers in an unexpected and honest direction, skillfully avoiding clichés. The ending, while a touch anticlimactic and largely happening offscreen, leans into sentimentality slightly more than Mannix’s typical fare. Additionally, while Wolf is an incredibly well-crafted character, his portrayal often overshadows Billy, leaving the human storyline occasionally weakened by comparison. Mannix’s expertise in animal psychology is so strong that his vivid animal sequences frequently outshine the human elements, with Billy’s dialogue sometimes too expository and plot-driving scenes occasionally taking a backseat to immersive animal-focused moments.
Yet, for many readers, this emphasis is part of the Mannix experience. Mannix’s novels transport readers into the minds of animals, offering a vivid, alternate perspective of the world, complete with exhilarating action and suspense that ranks among the best in nature writing. The Healer is a perfect read for those wanting an authentic Mannix experience with a touch of fantasy and a human viewpoint. Mannix remains in a league of his own, masterfully blending nature, realism, and adventure.
October 7, 2022
A semi-magical realist novel about a young city-dwelling teen who is sent to live with an Amish woodsman uncle, The Healer is a serviceable coming-of-age story hindered by the author’s use of “tell don’t show” exposition, and refusal to lean more heavily into the tangential xenofiction elements of his tale. [5/10]
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