Little-Bee-749902
A couple of years ago, I was in the kids’ book department, trying to find something for my nephew; maybe the marvelous Captain Underpants. While I was there, I decided to see what old Nancy Drew was up to. She’s still a teenager, but now has a brand-new sleuthitorial aid—a cell phone. Near the neo-Nancy, I spied reprints of the original series, complete with vintage covers. The sight of them reminded me of the library I went to as a kid, and it filled me with the worst kind of homesickness for that time and place. I still love the library, but when I was six or seven, it was a grand confectionery where I could fall into a yellow beanbag, pull something off the shelf, and erase time and space. As an adult, it’s been harder to find books that do that. Surely part of that is my calcifying grown-up brain, but the way parents glommed on to their kids’ Harry Potter books suggests that maybe I am not alone in this feeling. Maybe the problem is that there are too many well-behaved MFA grads writing fiction? Or the current predominance of chain bookstores, and the pressure to publish books that are easier categorize, and therefore shelve and mass-market? Don’t know. What I do know is that in juvenile fiction, having a strong plot doesn't mean you lose points on the artistic integrity scale. You don’t have to worry about being too funny for fear that your book will get shelved near tablets of Mad Libs. And because your readers are not concerned about consuming your book as a lifestyle enhancing tool, you are pretty much free to stop worrying about whether you’re being too imaginative or political, or the fact that you might be writing outside of your own gender, color, nationality or socio-political strata.
Lucky for us, Sceptre Books in England realized this same sort of nimble, holistic approach would serve them well with adult fiction too, and published Chris Cleave’s novel The Other Hand. Last year, Simon & Schuster released the book in the U.S. as Little Bee, which has just come out in paperback. The title character is a Nigerian refugee who flees to England to escape her country’s oil wars, but finds herself locked up in an immigration detention center for two years. Once released, she sets out to find the only people in the country she knows: the O’Rourkes, a couple she met on a beach in Nigeria. Little Bee’s story is deeply tied to that of the wife, Sarah, an editor of a London fashion magazine, as well her son Charlie (who refuses to take off his batman suit—Sarah keeps an extra so at least one will be in the wash at all times). I’m not really a believer in plot spoilers, but this is one book that is more powerful to read if you know less, rather than more. I will tell you that the chapters alternate between Little Bee’s voice and Sarah’s, and that their accounts overlap in places, and that the effortless switching back and forth is a testament to Cleave’s skill as a writer. Pulling off this book also required a lot of old-fashioned journalistic footwork: Cleve interviewed refugees, slogged through court records for details about immigrant detention centers, and studied the patterns of Nigerian English, which, as Little Bee will tell you, is not quite like the Queen’s English. (Charlie and his batsuit were based on Cleave's eldest son, who he writes about quite frequently in a column for the Guardian.) Cleave's hard work paid off—as the Washington Post noted, “Little Bee will blow you away.” The book and the character both.
Little Bee is a literary novel that’s grounded in current affairs, but feels mythic. Its sadness will wring all the blood out of your heart, but it’s shot through with a wonderful sense of humor (and yes, even silliness in some parts). It is very character- and plot-driven, with precise, poetic language, which makes it a pleasure to read. I found myself in a conundrum I often experienced while drifted inside that beanbag chair as a kid: I wanted to read as slowly as possible (because I knew I would miss the characters at the end), but I was unable to stop myself from turning the page to see what happened next. Apparently it has had this effect on other people, too—book critics have been throwing out superlatives like “resplendent,” “astonishing,” and “enthralling,” and the paperback edition is currently number three on the New York Times bestseller list. Simon & Schuster has also sent Cleave on a grand, old-fashioned book tour all across the country, an unheard-of thing these days. In fact, Cleave will be at our own County Library Headquarters (1640 S. Lindbergh), tomorrow (March 4 ) at 7 p.m. to kick off Read St. Louis 2010, which has chosen Little Bee as its “New Voices” selection. If you’ve made it this far, I’m assuming you love books. Go to the library to see Cleave read, and find yourself a copy of Little Bee. Especially if you’re one of those parents who stole your kid’s copy of Harry Potter, or felt that sting of nostalgia the last time you crept around the kid’s book department. —Stefene Russell
Copies of Little Bee for tomorrow's signing are available at Pudd'nhead Books (37 South Old Orchard Avenue, 314-918-1069). For more information on Chris Cleave and Little Bee, as well as his Cleave's novel, Incendiary, go to chriscleave.com.
