Affinities

Affinities and Other Short stories
by: Mary Roberts Rinehart

I picked this book up somewhere, I was drawn to the old cover as well as the authoress. At the time I thought it was Radcliffe not Rinehart. Radcliff is mentioned in Jane Austen's books. I began reading the first story titled Affinities and was a little shocked at the story line as it was married couples going out for a secret picnic with other people's spouses. This was especially troublesome to me after seeing that it was first published in 1909. I paused in my reading to do a quick wikipidea search on the author to rule out any Nora Roberts of the 1900's. I was reassured by what I found on the web and picked up the book again. It took me maybe an hour and a half to read the entire story and I'm so glad I did. It had a good moral and I had a good laugh after it was all said and done. The first thing I thought when I was done reading it was, my grandmother would love this story!

The Secret Life of Bees

This book is by Sue Monk Kidd, who it says lives in Charleston. Maybe Kellie will run into her :). Anyway, it's set in South Carolina (they mention Goose Creek!) in 1964 as the Civil Rights Act was signed. It's about a white 14 year old girl named Lily, and her colored nanny/housekeeper Rosleen. Lily runs away from home and takes Rosleen with her, after Rosleen got herself in trouble when trying to register to vote. They end up in the home of three colored sisters, one of whom is a beekeeper. The sisters let them stay. It's about Lily coming to terms with her childhood, her mother, her father, and the changing world; she has a policeman tell her she's lowered herself by living with these ladies, yet she finds she likes being there better than she ever liked her own home. There is swearing in it.

I'm now reading The Help, as Maria suggested, which is very good, and it's interesting to read these two books about the same subject - civil rights and segregation in the South in the early '60s. It would be interesting to hear what someone who lived in that era - hint, hint Mom - has to say about it, I'm sure that Utah/Idaho were far different from the South at that time. Was anything in Idaho/Utah even segregated?