Sunday Books & Culture

This week’s reviews include a fictional account of book banning and a multi-generational story of Murano, Italy's glassmakers.

Sunday Books & Culture is edited by Vanessa Sekinger
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LULA DEAN’S LITTLE LIBRARY OF BANNED BOOKS

by Kirsten Miller

Published by William Morrow (June 18, 2024)
Hardcover $22.40
Audiobook $14.99

Reviewed by Drew Gallagher

Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books is a wonderful and important work of fiction. Any resemblance to a person or persons in Spotsylvania County is merely coincidental. 

For instance, I defy you to find a mother who is still bitter that she was never one of the cool kids and now believes that she knows how to parent your children better than you do. Find me one woman who has crusaded against books that deal sensitively with LGBTQ and black themes and then decided those books needed to be removed from library shelves because they were corrupting the minds of our youth. That woman cannot possibly exist in this day and age.

She would then have to form a committee of concerned parents, just like Lula Dean, and be an embarrassment to her own children because she thought she knew better than everyone else in the county when the only thing she excelled at was being close-minded and making crappy desserts. She would have to have managed to secure a list of troubling book titles online, as provided by like-minded conservatives with so-called Christian values, and then label the books as pornography and convince a school board that she was the voice of reason and that any books that dealt with themes uncomfortable to her should be removed from library shelves and never read again. This could never happen in the “real” world. Could it? 

What does happen in Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books is that Lula Dean wants to provide books of solid content to her community and opens a little library on her front porch where citizens of her small town in Georgia can come and borrow Art of The Deal and Chicken Soup books without having to worry that their minds would be brainwashed by characters with problems that sometimes include rape, slavery, or same sex relationships. Lula Dean is a wholesome mother and wants to save the world from people who are not like her. Fortunately, she fails spectacularly.

One of the town’s children, outraged at Lula Dean’s library and Lula Dean running off one of the most popular teachers in the high school because she stalked him at a gay bar, changes out the books in Lula Dean’s library but leaves the dust jackets. The library becomes transformative to anyone in the community who happens by and flips open a book about crocheting only to become riveted by Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Of course, Lula Dean never read the objectionable books and never bothers to open the books in her library after this prank.

Elijah is a high schooler whose family has been ripped apart by his older brother Isaac’s admission that he is gay. Elijah loves his brother and loves his parents. He’s desperate to get his family back together and pulls a book from Lula Dean’s library.

“Now Elijah was sitting on a park bench with a book he’d borrowed from Lula Dean’s library. Isaac would be pissed as hell if he heard that Elijah had gone anywhere near the crazy lady’s house. The shelves at the high school library were half empty now, thanks to that ‘book-burning barbarian,’ as Isaac called her. Elijah wasn’t quite as quick to condemn Lula Dean. He supposed she thought she was protecting them all by hiding the books about sex and such. It was kinda sad and a little bit funny truth be told.”

Yep, something like that is completely unfathomable and could never ever happen here. Fortunately, Kirsten Miller has written a brilliant book on what indelible harm such a crusading mother might cause a community when we start to ban the books that can be so important to our children. But when that community rallies around its people, all of its people no matter their race or sexual orientation, sometimes that community reveals itself to be a place where people feel loved and want to live there and raise their children there. That part, I hope, is not fiction. 

 Drew Gallagher is a freelance writer residing in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He is the second-most-prolific book reviewer and first video book reviewer in the 137-year history of the Free Lance-Star Newspaper. He aspires to be the second-most-prolific book reviewer in the history of FXBG Advance and is also a founding member of Dads for Puppies.

THE GLASSMAKER 

by Tracy Chevalier

Published by Viking (June 18, 2024)
Hardcover $24.45
Audiobook $14.99

Reviewed by Penny A Parrish  

If you’ve ever been to Venice – or have dreamed about going – you know it is a city currently besieged by tourists, prone to floods, and known for its canals. It is also close to an island named Murano, famous for its glass. These are the settings for Chevalier’s new novel.

The book begins in 1486 when Venice is a Renaissance jewel. Glass factories abound on the island of Murano, and the finished products include goblets, bowls, ornaments and even chandeliers. Gondolas take them from the island to Venice, where merchants arrange passage of these delicate items to the rest of the world.

Orsola Rosso is a young girl when the story begins. Her family has been in the glassblowing business for years. But that will not be the life for Orsola, as women are not allowed to be in the factories or take part in the process. However, when her father dies, she learns how to make glass beads from another woman on Murano. Heating smelly tallow over a flame and pumping bellows, she finds a way to be a glassmaker in her own small way. Sales of those beads end up keeping the family afloat.

The author has created a clever timeline, which she compares to skipping a stone over water.  At the start, Orsola is nine. In part two, she is 18. Those in her family and circle of friends have aged only nine years. But the setting is now 1574. Through these time warps we follow the characters as they slowly age and respond to changes in history: the plagues, Napoleon's victory putting the Austrians in control, the effects of World Wars on the glass business and tourism, and eventually the impact of COVID. 

By the end of the book, Orsola is in her late 60s, and the world has changed dramatically. Gondolas are only used by tourists. Bridges now link Venice to “terraferma” (the place that all Murano residents either feared or escaped to). Tourism is back with a vengeance. And glass is still made on the island.

Chevalier did her research on both the glassmaking industry and Venice itself. In a way, this combines what could have been two pedantic books into one with a heart. The characters grow, change, make decisions good and bad, and readers follow them through several hundred years.  It’s a fascinating premise and it works well. The author also includes a glossary of Venetian and Italian terms which was very helpful.

The author is best known for The Girl With the Pearl Earring. This novel highlights another woman who steps outside the role society gave her, sharing with the reader another facet of art, of creating, and of surviving.  

Penny A Parrish is a long-time book reviewer and artist. Learn more about her by visiting her page at Brush Strokes Gallery, which is in downtown Fredericksburg.

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