Order Lavina Today!
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Novels by Mary Marcus
New on the Blog
What ‘The Help’ Got Wrong
There is a lot I like about The Help. I like the tenderness between the housekeepers and the children. I certainly felt that with Aline, who inspired me to write Lavina. The book brought to light some of the unfairness that ran through southern households like the rotten roots of a decaying tree, and got people talking about it, remembering it. But in my opinion, humble as it may be, Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, got a few things wrong in her bestselling book. To Kill A Mockingbird was banned from Louisiana classrooms as recently as 2013. The Help was set in the 1960’s and no bookstore in my hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana, would have carried the book written by the main character. Skeeter’s book would have been banned from the bookstores, libraries and definitely the schools. The premise of The Help doesn’t address the systemic racism that southern towns operated on, even though it nails small town life. The pie. The infamous pie makes Mini seem like a savage. I grew up in the kitchen, and no one I ever knew would have done anything like this. Never. Not every racially diverse character needs to be a hero, but this act was so sub-human it actually deepens the stereotypes that The Help ostensibly aimed to diminish. Skeeter—a semi-virtuous wellborn white girl—saving the day for the domestics. Nobody saved the day for any African American woman I ever met. My mother paid our housekeeper Aline maybe ten dollars more a week than any of the other women got. But Aline lived below the poverty level and her family no...Portrait Of My Imaginary Mother
It’s Mother’s Day and she’s materialized for a visit. She looks younger than when I last saw her and wonderful, like she’s never had a sick day in her life. Her hair is silvery grey and it’s as soft and shiny as a length of silk. And it’s beautifully cut and styled. Maybe she got her face lifted or she’s getting just the best injectible job ever at that great dermatologist in the sky. She’s smiling; her brown almond shaped eyes crinkle at the corners when she smiles at me. The only thing that hasn’t changed is she’s wearing bright coral lipstick, though apparently in the other place, she’s discovered lip-gloss. Everything I do is just wonderful! She loves my little house, the Buddha at the door, the oil painting above the black cabinet. Henry is the cutest dog she’s ever seen, and so well behaved. And she’s so happy to meet my husband at long last; she’s been watching us from the hereafter, ever since we got married! Husband looks just bewildered. And I have to say, a little scared. Oy, what if this happens to me, he seems to be saying. Then he goes into the other room. As it turns out, Mama’s been given special permission from the powers who control such things to return on Mother’s Day, just to say, “Mary, I love you, you were the best daughter, I’m so proud of you for ‘Lavina’, and for everything else as well!” The landline rings. It’s my son on the phone to wish me Happy Mother’s Day. I put her on and the two of them talk for the very first time. Afterwards, she walks around my house, nodding at this, smiling...What’s in A Word?
According to this really chilling study in PLOS ONE I read about yesterday, while racism is very hard to measure, because of course, people lie about their racism, they are on the other hand, not so careful on their Google searches. For this PLOS ONE study, researchers looked at searches containing the N word. People search for the N word as often as they search for “Daily Show,” “Migraine” and “Lakers.” The team at PLOS ONE then aggregated these results over several years and several million searches. The results are hair-raising. A greater proportion of racist searches on Google are associated with an 8.2% increase in the mortality rate among Blacks. This does not mean after a racist does a search of one of his favorite words, he goes out and hunts down an African American. But racist attitudes can and do contribute to poor health and economic outcomes among black residents. I quote the authors of the study: “racial discrimination in employment can also lead to lower income and greater financial strain, which in turn have been linked to worse mental and physical health outcomes.” I think of the N word and I think of the little ghettos that were everywhere, in my hometown of Shreveport. Not just one ghetto, but numerous little ghettos, from which the ladies came forth every morning and on holidays as well, to catch the nearest bus that would carry them to the gleaming brick and pillared houses where they toiled. It wasn’t until the seventies that the minimum wage for domestic workers was mandated. And ignored. These ladies, among them my beloved Aline, left their run down shacks with their children playing outside, children I did not attend school with, though by...
The New Me
Lavina
Amazon • Barnes & Noble • Books-a-Million • iBooks • Indiebound • Indigo • The StoryPlant