After having read The Change and The Women of Wild Hills, I decided to pick up Kirsten Miller’s other adult novel. With her other two adult novels, Miller had a big magic realism component and dealt with quite a few larger, topical issues. This one takes on a lot of similar themes but at a more intimate level, in a small Southern town setting. Surprisingly, I think I enjoyed this more than The Change or The Women of Wild Hill!
Lula Dean is bitter – she has always felt like her family’s history and previous standing should have meant more and given her a more important place in society so when she realized the power and attention she gets from raising concerns about books available in the library, she goes all in on leading a book banning committee in the town. Finally, the respect she deserves! The fact that it hurts her nemesis, Beverly, is just icing on the cake.
As part of her work, Lula Dean sets up a free library on her sidewalk with appropriate books. What she doesn’t know is that the same night she did that, Beverly’s daughter Lindsay switched out the books in the library, putting things like Beloved under the cover of Our Confederate Heroes.
As people visit the library, thinking they are getting one book, they instead end up with the exact books they need to change their perspective and give them hope to fight back or make a difference.
However, while there are quite a few amusing scenes in here, she also explores some of the darker aspects of small town life and the forces impacting the US in general, from a white supremacist and his army of impressionable young men to cycles of abuse, and to people that simply can’t let go of a version of the past that never existed. For example, Miller shows that the lauded local Confederate hero wasn’t even respected in his own time but that’s not yhe part of the story that has been handed down.
In a way, this is still fantasy or magic realism because of how it all wraps up and ends but sometimes it’s fun to have an overly optimistic ending.
