Miss McGhee

Wonderful story set in a different time

How do you review 285 pages of magnificence and do it justice?

Mary McGhee made a mistake and part of her penance is being exiled to a small Alabama town in 1948 to help run the lumber mill that the town depends on for survival. The mill has been left to a man with the mental development of a twelve year old and Mary turns to his wife, Lila Dubose, as a natural ally to combat the forces in the town who view her as an outsider and unqualified to run the business. In her own way, Lila is also an outsider because she was brought from a poor family to ostensibly be the wife of the town prince, but in reality to be his lifelong care giver, so many people resent her new wealth and prestige. As the women work together to strengthen the mill and the town, they are drawn into a relationship that, at that time, would not only earn them the condemnation of the town's people, but could earn them each a prison sentence. Eventually, everyone has something more to talk about than the women's relationship. The book progresses through the 1950s and into the 1960s which sees the town trying to cope with the growing civil rights movement. Mary and Lila, who were already taxing the town's patience by helping the local Negroes, find themselves becoming more immersed in the movement. There is an inevitable confrontation that demonstrates the level of homophobia and racism of the period, but also teaches other lessons.

Miss McGhee strikes so many chords beautifully that starting with one unfairly infers that it was better done than the others. Hopefully, it won't only be Southerners of a certain age who can grasp how well Bett Norris has captured the tone of the period just preceding and during the early years of the civil rights movement. Many white Southerners weren't blatantly racist as much as they were clueless. They lived in a society that they had never questioned, which Lila Dubose represents perfectly. Not until Mary challenges "the way things have always been" does Lila begin to realize the depth of injustice she has been taught to tolerate. Southern blacks didn't accept the system, but rather coped with something that they thought couldn't be changed; however, there was a group of black women who were acknowledged by both parts of society and respected for their wisdom, strength and dignity. Norris has captured those women in the figure of Annie who provides the force behind much of the story. The historical accuracy of this book creates a tone that will have the reader believing that these characters actually lived. The book reads more like an observation of real events than a fictional story. The mood is reminiscent of Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" or Carson McCullers' "The Member of the Wedding" and just as compelling as either of them. Miss McGhee is one of those rare books that screams for a follow up.

Excellent First Novel

This debut novel by Bett Norris is set in a small town in the south during the decades of the civil rights movement. It tells the story of two women, both with different perspectives of the town and of the troubling times they live in. Mary McGhee is an outsider, recently moved to Myrtlewood to accept a job, single, alone and intending to stay that way, she has no desire to become an accepted member of this closed society. Lila Dubose was born and raised in Myrtlewood, and has never even considered any other options, finds herself in an unusual situation, married to the town's richest business man, maintaining the myth of the Dubose family, and she feels trapped, but perhaps no more so than any other woman of her time who gets married because that's what women do. There's a ot going on in this novel. Two women with almost nothing in common find that they share more than they thought possible. Both are moved and affected by the civil rights movement which sometimes hits uncomfortably close to home. Their sometimes reluctant involvement creates tension between them, and between them and the town. Their relationship is strained and threatened, their livelihood, even their lives. On one level, this is a romance, a love story. On another, it is about the fear and the strength that comes from being outside the norms. This book is about outsiders versus insiders. If you've ever wondered what happened to Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird when she grew up, ever wondered about those single ladies who never married, ever thought about what it must have been like to live in the south during that time, this novel answers some of those questions in surprising ways. Bett Norris shows skill and depth in her first novel, much more sensitivity and insight than one would expect in a first time writer.

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