Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books

Secret Keeper Girl (2017) (since renamed True Grit) by Dannah Gresh is a series of books intended to reinforce notions of tween purity from an Evangelical Christian perspective. Within this chapter, a little boy in Troy tries to uncover an unmentionable secret about girls.

Beau Sykes is the 10-year-old son of disgraced mayor Randy Sykes and his wife, Melody. Beau has just seen both his parents driving off in separate cars in a hurry. He is unaware of the scandal that Darlene’s Facebook post has just created for his family. Beau has all sorts of questions about girls, but nobody will tell him what anything means. He only has a rudimentary understanding of the difference between the sexes: “Beau hadn’t spent much time thinking about girls and women. He knew they were different from boys and men. Women had babies and took care of the house. Men went to work and shot things on the weekend” (85).

Beau is especially worried when he hears that his mother bleeds regularly. He thinks she might be sick. His older brother tells him about a box of bandages that his mother keeps hidden under the bathroom sink. At school, his teacher advises him to check out a book at the library on the subject. When the library is closed, Beau goes to Lula’s library and takes a copy of Secret Keeper Girl. Instead, he gets Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, which is about an adolescent girl’s self-discovery. Beau does get his question answered about female menstruation, and the book doesn’t make it seem weird at all. When he gets home that night, Beau learns that his father has resigned as mayor.

Blood and Soil (2009) by Ben Kiernan traces the history of genocide from ancient to modern times. Miller creates a fictional variant of this in her reference to a book called This Blood and Soil, which covers the realities of enslavement on the plantations of Georgia. In this chapter, Beverly recalls reading the book as a college freshman and how it changed her perspective on her family history.

In a flashback, Beverly is a college freshman getting her hair done at Val’s Beauty Salon, which offers a view of the town square, complete with its statue of Confederate General Augustus Wainwright. He is Beverly’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, and his statue bears the motto “Bow Not Before Tyrants Fight for Your Freedom, Sacrifice All but Honor, And Die with Dignity” (91). During her youth, Beverly bought into the notion of Confederate heroism and nobility in the face of Yankee oppression. This attitude changed after she met the town librarian, Jeanette Newman. Jeanette is a Yankee transplant who is regarded as the town hippie. When Beverly asks for a book to read, Jeanette gives her This Blood and Soil and points out its unflattering portrayal of Beverly’s planter-class ancestors.

The atrocities people like Augustus Wainwright committed horrify Beverly. She thinks, “The audacity of a man like her ancestor—claiming words like freedom, honor, and dignity when he’d deprived so many people of those very things” (93). Jeanette advises Beverly to look forward instead of back: “You want to make up for what your ancestor did? Learn everything you can and do your best to lead the way forward” (94).

Back in the present moment, Beverly is discussing Randy Sykes’s resignation with her old cheerleading crew. Val owns the salon. Yvette rents a chair from her, and Wanda is having her gray hair dyed. The women speculate that things might change for the better in Troy if they had a good mayor. They might even be able to pull down the statue of Augustus Wainwright. With Sykes gone, they urge Beverly to run for office.

The Art of the Deal (2009) is one of Donald Trump’s many books promoting success in business. In this chapter, another wheeler-dealer comes to Troy with political ambitions of his own.

Mitch Sweeney is a tall, muscular 60-year-old man who left Troy to pursue a successful career as an actor. He specializes in playing Southern villains. An online rant about the scapegoating of white men brings him to the attention of Make American Great Again (MAGA): “It was Trump who pulled Mitch aside and told him he ought to consider a career in politics. The world needed more men who called things like they saw ‘em” (103). That conversation fueled Mitch’s political ambitions. After hearing about Lula’s intention to run against Beverly for mayor, Mitch thinks he might raise his profile by visiting his hometown of Troy. Lula and Mitch stand beside her little library, where Mitch takes a copy of The Art of the Deal. He tells the assembled news reporters, “If we want to return to the way things were—to a time when our way of life was honored and respected—we have to defeat these libs for good. That’s why I urge everyone here in Troy to vote for Lula Dean!” (111).

You Can’t Go Home Again (1940) by Thomas Wolfe explores the hostile reception an author receives from his hometown after he writes a novel based on it. This chapter deals with Mitch’s less-than-warm reception by his brother.

Jeb Sweeney is the local veterinarian in Troy, and he holds a negative view of his big brother, who will do anything to grab attention. Mitch arrives for a short visit to inform Jeb that he plans to run for Congress. Since Jeb is a liberal, the two quickly get into a heated discussion about Mitch’s misperception of life in the rural South. Jeb has been holding protests against Lula’s book ban, but Mitch wants him to stop. The latter threatens to sell the family farm, leaving Jeb and his family with no home. Mitch tells Jeb that he’s arranged to stay at Logan Walsh’s house during his visit to town. Logan is the strange young man who was involved in Nathan Dugan’s neo-Nazi group, so Jeb warns Mitch away from him. Mitch ignores the warning and tosses The Art of the Deal at him. Inside, Jeb discovers a copy of Maus instead, a graphic novel about Holocaust survivors. Jeb realizes the significance of the switch: “He didn’t reach any conclusions or compose a list of suspects. Still, there was no doubt in his mind. It was a sign shit was gonna get ugly” (120).

A Field Guide to the Mushrooms of Georgia (2023) by Alan E. Bessette is an informative volume detailing the various fungi found in the state. In this chapter, one of the novel’s characters needs the book for a darker purpose.

The town librarian, Mara Ocumma, notices that the wife of the disgraced mayor is lurking in a private reading section with a book about mushrooms. Mara decides to have a chat with Melody Sykes, guessing that she intends to poison her husband. Melody is furious that nobody told her about Darlene’s rape years earlier. Now, her life is ruined, and she blames Randy for that. Because Melody was one of the original supporters of Lula’s book-banning campaign, she and Mara have a long discussion about censorship. However, Melody is still persuaded that Lula is protecting the younger generation. Mara points out that the mushroom book could lead to murder, so perhaps it ought to be taken off the shelves too. Having reached a stalemate, Mara persuades Melody to seek out a good divorce lawyer rather than kill Randy.

All That She Carried (2021) by Tiya Miles is the story of a bag of possessions handed down through three generations of Black women in the South after the Civil War. This chapter depicts a Black woman who carries the burden of destructive intergenerational beliefs.

Betsy Wright is plagued by a sense of guilt because her son Isaac is gay. Deeply religious, she blames herself and thinks she must have been a terrible mother. Otherwise, Isaac would have turned out better. Betsy owns the local flower shop where she worked beside Lula for years. She is well aware of Lula’s social pretensions, reminding everyone that her family once owned the lumber mill where all the Black people worked. Betsy worries about her husband, James, too. Also deeply religious, he initially supported Lula’s book ban: “James needed something to blame, and Lula Dean stepped in with a scapegoat. Betsy knew that a book hadn’t turned their son gay any more than the romance novels she’d once loved had made her a harlot” (134).

Tonight, Lula is holding a rally to save the Confederate statue in the town square, and she wants James up on the podium with her, probably thinking that this will signal Black support for her cause. Betsy intends to return Rivals and Lovers to Lula’s library even though Elijah begged her to read it so that she could understand Isaac better. On the way, she runs into Delvin, who says that Isaac is planning a counterprotest to Lula’s event that evening. He also gives her some words of wisdom about religious intolerance, advising her to forget the Old Testament’s rules and read the New Testament instead: “As far as I know, Jesus never said a damn thing about gay folks or barbecue. But he sure did talk a lot about love” (140).

The Big Reveal: An Illustrated Manifesto of Drag (2023) by Sasha Velour is a book that celebrates queer culture and the latent tendencies toward eccentricity in everyone. “The Big Reveal” is also a literary device used in fiction to dramatically expose some key element of character or plot. In this chapter, the big reveal relates to Lula’s two missing children.

In Florida, Lula’s twin children, Talia and Taylor, are preparing for a drag show they are staging. They believe they have a mission to uplift the world and fight against prejudice through entertainment. At the same time, they have been keeping tabs on their mother’s book-banning activities through social media and now learn that she is planning to run for mayor: “‘I feel like she’s our responsibility,’ Talia said. ‘After everything she did? Why is that bitch our burden to bear?’ ‘Because we’re the only ones who can stop her’” (143). The twins resolve to finish their show in Tallahassee and head back home to deal with Lula.