Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2

[Steph]

We loved Santa Fe when we visited it in the RV.. A bit far for me, but it was such a lovely place with lots of things to do and small museums.. We have a friend there and he loves the opera company and gets to be an extra in a lot of things. As he says, he just must keep his mouth shut since he still has a french accent.

[maryz]

I grew up on the Gulf Coast, so I never saw a lilac until I went to Colorado to do summer work when I was in college.  But that was the first thing I planted when we moved to TN.  TN is at the southern edge of where a lilac will live and bloom.  But, in Houston, we did have hedges of cape jasmines with their wonderful scent.

[pedln]

MaryZ, that brings back memories.  My in-laws lived in St. Croix, Virgin Islands and had jasmine growing over the steps down to their drive.  What a wonderful scent.

[rosemarykaye]

MaryZ and Pedln - what wonderful scenes/scents you conjure up.  And Steph, what a father you had!  Fancy planting a lilac just so that you could smell its lovely fragrance from your room

When my daughter first started boarding at school, I did from time to time buy her little fragrant plants to put in her room.  Predictably, every one of them was left to die a horrible death - not watered, not put in the light, etc.  In the end she asked me if I could buy her some artificial flowers!

I remember reading a novel years ago in which the heroine went to Provence; the scent of the lavender fields must have been well described because I can remember reading about it to this day, even though the story was decidedly Mills & Boonish.  We had lavender in our garden in London when I was little - my mother used to make lavender bags with it.  I did grow it in my garden in Aberdeen, but it never seemed to flourish - I just don't think it ever got enough sun and drought.

[JoanK]

Lilacs are so beautiful, and ALAS, I'm terribly alergic to their smell. Sigh.

[Steph]

Oh how sad.. I have confederate Jasmin close to my back door . It is a really greedy climber andmust be cut back or it will take over the house, but I do so love the scent when it blooms. One of my very few scented flowers. On the other hand, several of my herbs give off strong scents.
I do love the books written by the Texan on a woman, who used to be a lawyer , who owns a herb shop.. I know.. her name is just in front of me, but the senior moment has taken over. Anyway, I have to have read close to a dozen of the herb books.. Lots of hints on usage as wel.

[rosemarykaye]

Steph - I googled it and I think it is:

Susan Wittig Albert - China Bayles

Isn't the internet an amazing thing?!

I haven't read any of these books but they will now join my TBR list.  I only need about 10 lifetimes to get to the end  - but fortunately I cheat and skip about a bit, and often decide I no longer want to read something I listed.  It's great to feel so free and not be stuck with stuff you have to read any more.

Rosemary

[Babi]

It's great to feel so free and not be stuck with stuff you have to read any more.

  Amen! to that, ROSEMARY.

[Steph]

 Yes, SusanWittig Albert.. I remembered it later yesterday.The information on herbs is excellent and I love that series.She writes several and I cant get into the ones she does with her husband, but I do love the China Bayles series.

[mabel1015j]

Just finished Nora Roberts' Chesapeake Blue. I guess it wld be considered one of Roberts "romancizes". It's contemporary, set in small town Maryland. The protagonist is an adult artist who had  an alcoholic, abusive mother who was "resucued" from her by his grandfather who had adopted three other sons, who were adults when the boy came to live w/ them. It's a great story of how "a family" can be made and doesn't have to be biological. I enjoyed it, as i do most of Roberts' stories. Altho, her book list is so long, she can't be writing them all herself....... Jean

[Steph]

I l ike the JD Robb series that Roberts writes, but the romances do not turn me on. Too much how beautiful or handsome everyone has to be.. Like you, I suspect she has assistants writing. Too many books in too short a time. I met her once when I owned a book store. A good deal older than her pictures.

[mabel1015j]

Did one of you mention "The Bridge" by Doug Marlette? I've finally gotten into it abt 100 pages. I think it's going to be a good story, but his describing EVERYTHING in detail may hv me skimming some pages...... Jean

[jane]

mabel1015j ... I hope you will consider reading the other 3 in that Chesapeake series, if you liked Seth's story.  I think the first one, about Cameron, is excellent: Sea Swept.  Then there is Rising Tide and Inner Harbor which tell the stories of Ethan and Phillip. 

I agree she can't be writing all of these herself...way too much difference in style, I think, and substance.  There are several other authors I think are, in reality, multiple writers as well.

jane

[roshanarose]

jane : What a cute bunnykins for Easter. 

[Steph]

Just probably 40 pages in
The Help.. It picked up, but still strikes me as far fetched. Maybe not in Mississippi though..

[Babi]

 No, for the 'deep South',  I would say it is pretty much on track for that time period.  Not at
all far-fetched. 

[jeriron]

I enjoyed "The Help".  After reading reviews I found that those that came from the south didn't like it and felt it wasn't true to life.

[BarbStAubrey]

The problem is that there has been a wide brush used to paint the South with one viewpoint - like everywhere there were different experiences for different folks. There is also an attitude of judgment by folks who have not lived in the South and who do not want to own their own history.

 

[ursamajor]

In my experience - my mother always had a maid - the Help was only descriptive of upper class southern women.  Most middle-class people had a maid, but we never lived in a house with more than one bathroom until after I left home.  And she and Mother worked side by side on a lot of jobs.  The last maid she had worked for her more than twenty years. After Mother went to a retirement home I helped her financially as long as she lived.  There was a lot of affection in many of these relationships.  I grew up in middle Tennessee and possibly things were different in Alabama.

And yes, I have met women who are really that mean.

[maryz]

I grew up in Texas, then we moved to TN after our kids were born.  Although The Help was not descriptive of my personal experience, I know that such situations did exist.  I really liked the book.

[maryz]

I grew up in Texas, then we moved to TN after our kids were born.  Although The Help was not descriptive of my personal experience, I know that such situations did exist.  I really liked the book.

[Tomereader1]

I, too, really liked the book, and it was one of our f2f Library Book Club selections, and had the most turnout of any of our discussions, many came there were not previously members of our group.  We were privileged to have a lovely young black woman attend, and  she really added to our discussion as her mother had been a maid, and yes, some of the things were very true, both about "mean" employers and the ideas they held about maids and black people in general.

[FlaJean]

The Help is one of the best books I've read in a while.

[Steph]

I finished
The Help,, but I guess that my family experiences in Delaware ( where I grew up) and South Carolina where I lived for a while were so different from the book.. Like someone else, I grew up in a house with one bathroom.. My Mom and her maid worked side by side. We always thought of Martha as one of the family. She would get so excited if Mom got some new furniture because that meant, that she could have the older stuff.. It was always startling to walk into her house. It was a duplicate of Moms.. When my Mother died, she grieved as much as I did..Oh well. the book was an interesting view of the south.. Not my south, but someones..

[pedln]

Tomereader, I'm glad to hear your f2f group had such a successful discussion on The Help.  I'm leading the discussion for my f2f group in June, and will be rereading it soon. It's interesting reading the different experiences folks here have had.  My first 6 years were spent in Washington D.C. and my mother had a maid.  My brother remembers her as a live-in, but I don't remember that.  My mother grew up in very small towns in Wisconsin, taught a few years in Montana, and I doubt very much that she had ever seen a black person, let alone speak to one, before coming to DC.
 
My 82-year-old brother still talks about when he was about 5 or 6 he got mad at Agnes, the maid, and used the "n" word. She was made of pretty stern stuff and  hauled him off to my mother and said, "you tell your mother what you said," and he got in trouble twice that day.

Then came the war, we moved to Chicago, and that was the end of Help.

[BarbStAubrey]

Maids were in and out of my life based on where we lived - when my children were young we had Bertha who made the best bread pudding every week after she cleaned the kitchen. Her biggest help was doing the ironing - and so while I stripped beds and gathered the laundry she set up the ironing board and we got it done. When I consider a job today - we would find few where the employee/employer relationship is that sharing and that filled with the good humor that went with two women rolling up their sleeves and getting it done.

I am sure like many a working mother and wife, especially during those years when most white women did not work out of their house   there was the feeling of wanting to be home by the help and the additional burden that all working women carry of doing the job and then coming home to take care of your own children and household -

I did  not know anyone that was cruel or extra demanding - I have heard of this trait but never encountered it - most often there were several of us who were friends who shared the same maid, each having her one or two days a week. And that arrangement filtered through so much of our life since there always seemed to be a family member of the maid who worked as a sales lady or as the staff that picked up after the sale in either the local department store or women's dress shop and she would call us when something came in that matched our style or colors because, she knew all of our tastes from the maid that told her all about how we lived and what we liked and didn't like - and so it was a community of women and we each had our role not unlike the community that ran any large house only we were a bunch of small individual houses.

[MaryPage]

I am a Southerner, and everyone I knew (but what, when all is said and done, can anyone know of what goes on behind other closed doors) was very close to their "help" and very considerate and helpful.  We had a full-time live-in "colored" maid/nanny who had her own bedroom, tiny but adequate, off the kitchen and her own tiny bathroom.  The day help could use that bathroom also.

I remember as a still quite young child meeting this dear woman's mother:  old and shriveled up and bent over, she was.  I was told she had been a slave, and was excited a few years later in a history class to be able to say I had met "a real live slave."  Ah, what children do not take in!

As a young wife myself, I used to do as Barbara describes:  share a cleaning lady/ironer with my galfriends.  My day was Thursday for dear Louise.

[rosemarykaye]

I am sure it was very different in the US, but when I was a child my mother was the cleaner.  Her own mother also went out and cleaned people's houses, and  "took in" washing (all done by hand and wrung through a mangle in the back garden) to try to make ends meet - this was in addition to bringing up 5 children on a tiny income.  I think in both generations the employers felt that they were "friends" with the cleaners, but neither my mother nor my grandmother felt that way - they felt subservient, poor, and obliged to grovel.

On the other hand, my mother's oldest sister emigrated to S Africa in the early 1950s and had the same black maid until she died.  My mother visited her in later life, and reported that my aunt and Iris were devoted to one another, and had the kind of relationship that some of you have described between your mothers and their maids. 

I have had cleaners from time to time.  I always ran around so much tidying up before they came that in the end I decided life was easier just wallowing in my own slobdom.

Rosemary

[mabel1015j]

MaryPage - if the maid and the day help wanted to use the family bathroom, could they?

I don't think i ever knew anyone who had fulltime "help". How do you all feel about present day use of the term "maid"? Has it taken on a denigrating  meaning, or is it the appropriate professional term to use? If it's denigrating, what is the respectful term to use? Have any of you talked about that in your group discussions? ...... Jean

[BarbStAubrey]

Today here in Austin most maids are either Mexican American, Mexican or from El Salvidor - and of course they, as all  help in the home use our bathrooms and our sinks and our whatever - it was just less formal - a more intimate relationship - but it was/is a job - if you hire someone to repair your computer or do a job of  organizing  your files you do not send them down the street to take a break - if the gardener comes in to use the John you don't send him out behind the tool shed - you do have to tease him to remove his shoes - the same for someone you hired to help with the care of your home and family. - Now there may be some antiques that need a special kind of care and that may be something the help needs to know about but for the most part those who help in a home are more expert then we in the care of things.

There are two movies that probably depict better then many - there was one with Montgomery Clift  and Jo Van Fleet  years ago about the Tennessee Valley Authority buying up the land - called Wild River - it was the daughter who falls in love with Montgomery Clift who has the maid help her with her children and then for a more formal look there is Driving Miss Daisy - the movie.

[roshanarose]

I am not speaking for all Australian women, of course, but most of the women I know who have a "cleaning lady" are those who work full-time and are often professionals who leave money for the cleaning lady and may never see her.  To call that cleaning lady a maid would be very bad form indeed.  As for Australian women having cleaning ladies in the earlier days, I should imagine that only the rich could afford them.  It is difficult to talk about nationality, because if you have citizenship you are Australian wherever you come from.  

[Gumtree]

when I was working full time I had a 'cleaner' who came in weekly - At the time I had teenaged boys making such a mess - The 'cleaner' came from an agency and I rarely saw her/them. She/they did a good job for years. I always 'tidied-up' the night before and sometimes felt that that was the bigger job. I never thought of the 'cleaner' as a 'maid' or the 'help'
They were hired to do a job and did it - I paid the agency by cheque every month. That might sound cold blooded but it worked.

Roshanarose Have you read Elizabeth Jolley's Newspaper of Claremont Street. The protagonist is a cleaner in one of the more affluent suburbs of Perth and she is 'shared' by several of her neighbours.
The character is known as 'Weekly' - The 'Newspaper' in the title refers to the way Weekly spreads the gossip. It's a typical Jolley novel - quirky and a little off-beat and about more than cleaning houses.

[Steph]

Ann Purser has written a whole series of mysteries based on a lady in  a small village in England who decided to clean house for people and her adventures and her expansion into a maid service.. Interesting.

[Babi]

 

I think in both generations the employers felt that they were "friends" with the cleaners,
but neither my mother nor my grandmother felt that way - they felt subservient, poor, and
obliged to grovel.

 I suspect that may have been the situation in many Southern homes as well, ROSEMARY. Even
the most well-meaning of employers would be unlikely to understand the feelings of their
'colored' help. Even where they enjoyed a good relationship, that was entirely dependent
on the attitude of the employer.
 

[ursamajor]

The woman who cleans for me now - white, East Tennessean, well-spoken, a high school graduate - surely does not think of herself as a maid.  She considers herself a cleaning professional, and frequently brings her tools with her.  She has cleaned for me for more than ten years.  I value her highly and she knows it because I tell her so every week.  We have become friends.  The relationship I had with colored cleaners in the past was quite different.  Years ago the assumption was in-equality; blacks were just not considered on the same level as whites and it affected both employer and employee.  The relationship could be cordial and even affectionate, but it reflected what my husband's grandfather once said: " Decent white people take care of their N-----s. " Mercifully I think that is mostly gone from the society where I live, but I think whites are generally more comfortable with whites and Blacks are more comfortable with Blacks.  In another generation maybe this will not be so.

[mabel1015j]

You are right Ursa about the next generation being more comfortable w/ mixed cultures, they have benefited from the integration laws, in both the north and the south. They have gone to school w/ each other, been team members in both sports and business, have worked beside each other, and even, minimally, worshipped beside each other.

Our family is very multi-cultural. We have Calvinist Prebyterians, both black and white, black and white Methodists and Baptists,  and Catholics. By ancestry we are Hispanic, African-American, Native American, and Irish and German American. We have four inter-cultural marriages: 3 black/white couples and one black/hispanic couple and one lesbian partnership. All the extended family, and there are dozens, except one, has grown and accepted into the various families all of these people. Our summer cookouts are a lot of fun and have a lot of great food, an added benefit....... Jean 

[JoanK]

Steph: here is a list of Ann Purser books. Which series is the one you mentioned?

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/p/ann-purser/

[MaryPage]

Good on you, Jean!

[roshanarose]

Gumtree - Of course I have heard of Elizabeth Jolley, but have not read her (as yet)!  At the moment my full-time occupation is cross referencing The Odyssey.  I am very interested in the geography of the story and the original mythology.  It is keeping me busy and my TBR pile continues to grow, but alas, unread.

[Gumtree]

Roshanarose: I think everyone in the Odyssey discussion appreciates your contributions. I know I certainly do - and should have said so sooner.
Thank you - and please keep up the good work but don't forget a little change now and then is good too!