The Southern Novelist
Is there a difference between a Southern writer and one from New England, the Midwest, Pacific Northwest, or California? By what dynamic do Southern writers conceive their stories? Is it the overall small town ruralness of their subjects? Is it the vast divides between black and white, rich and poor, or highly educated and barely literate? Is it the dark beauty of a pine, persimmon, and live oak filled countryside full of ticks, chiggers, possum, squirrels, stills, pulpwood, and boys in dirty bib overalls?
Or, like writers everywhere, they take bits and pieces from their wonderful, and somewhat unique, environment to fill their stories with color, people, feelings, smells, and an air of nature’s beauty, bounty, and savageness.
I just finished reading Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees. This is the author’s first novel, but not her first book, nor her first attempt at writing fiction. Follow the link on the author for more information on this accomplished, award winning author.
The year is 1964 and Lily Owens lives with her father, who raises peaches, in rural South Carolina. Lily longs to discover the truth about her mother, the woman her fathers says abandoned both of them. Her search for her mother leads her to run away with her black housekeeper. They follow the one clue Lily has of her mother and end up living with three black sisters living in a pink house. One of the sisters is a beekeeper and holds the grail of Lily’s quest.
This is a wonderful coming-of-age story set at a time of dramatic change in race relations throughout the United States and particularly in the South. As Lily searches for her place in the world, yearning for an imagined past, and living in a world that makes little sense, she finally runs into a truth she didn’t expect, nor desire.
Sue Monk Kidd fills The Secret Life of Bees with wonderful characterizations, a bounty of colorful nature, and the intricate care of bees. You see the South through the innocent eyes of a fourteen-year-old girl who struggles to understand the illogical race relations of her day.
This is a good book that deserves an honored place in any library of debut novels.
Or, like writers everywhere, they take bits and pieces from their wonderful, and somewhat unique, environment to fill their stories with color, people, feelings, smells, and an air of nature’s beauty, bounty, and savageness.
I just finished reading Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees. This is the author’s first novel, but not her first book, nor her first attempt at writing fiction. Follow the link on the author for more information on this accomplished, award winning author.
The year is 1964 and Lily Owens lives with her father, who raises peaches, in rural South Carolina. Lily longs to discover the truth about her mother, the woman her fathers says abandoned both of them. Her search for her mother leads her to run away with her black housekeeper. They follow the one clue Lily has of her mother and end up living with three black sisters living in a pink house. One of the sisters is a beekeeper and holds the grail of Lily’s quest.
This is a wonderful coming-of-age story set at a time of dramatic change in race relations throughout the United States and particularly in the South. As Lily searches for her place in the world, yearning for an imagined past, and living in a world that makes little sense, she finally runs into a truth she didn’t expect, nor desire.
Sue Monk Kidd fills The Secret Life of Bees with wonderful characterizations, a bounty of colorful nature, and the intricate care of bees. You see the South through the innocent eyes of a fourteen-year-old girl who struggles to understand the illogical race relations of her day.
This is a good book that deserves an honored place in any library of debut novels.
posted by Carl Holiday at
11:28 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home