September and October Contemporary Women Writers Book Group meetings

The group met September 13 and discussed Pat Conroy's South of Broad.  The book is beautifully written and the author clearly loves to write about his beloved Charleston. South Carolina.    The novel focuses on a very dysfunctional family.  The story traces the life of Leo after the suicide of his older brother, at age eleven.  Leo's mother is an academic who is obsessed with James Joyce.  Leo has lived as an awkward  outsider until his senior year of high school when he befriends six new students who become his lifelong friends.  There are many twists and surprises in the novel.
The group met on October 11 and discussed The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  We have been waiting to read this book for over a year, but the request list at the library was too long!  The request list increased again after the movie was released this summer.  The group really enjoyed the book about a young white woman who returns home to Jackson, Mississippi after college, wanting to become a writer.  She decides to write about the lives of "the help," the black women who cook, clean the homes, and raise the children of white families.  Set in the early 1960's, the novel captures the history of the time, especially the beginning of the civil rights movement.  The Help was on the bestseller list for over two years.