There are so many lives that I know nothing about. This fact struck me when I read two recent of novels with characters and settings that opened up doors of awareness.
Suzanne Staples, an award-winning children's book author, was once a UPI correspondent. Her books reflect the breadth of her foreign experiences and show cultures most Americans haven't experienced. Her latest, Shiva's Fire (FSG, $17.00; ages 12 - adult), takes place in India and mysticism and Hindu religion flavor the story like exotic spices. While Staples opens the gateway for readers to travel to this unfamiliar culture, her story asks the questions people face regardless of background.
Meenakshi, the mother of two sons, bears her daughter Parvati on an auspicious day. It is the Maharaja's birthday in Nandipuram, a fictional region in the south of India. This occasion is celebrated by his distribution of gold to the poor and also marks the beginning of the monsoons. Maharaja's joy at the impending birth of his son heightens the elation, but the day ends in devastation of the region by cyclones and floods. There is tremendous loss in Meenakshi's family. Her husband, a sculptor- elephant tender, is trampled, her home is destroyed and the family must move in with an envious aunt.
Her daughter, Parvati is born outside in the storm and peers with "a more penetrating and intense gaze" than any her mother has ever seen. It is this knowing look that heals her mother's heart, but alienates her aunt. Soon others in the village blame the infant Parvati for the destruction. Suspicions grow as Parvati grows and her eccentricities emerge. She was born "with music in her bones" and wishes to dance in the flames like Lord Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and recreation. When she does so at six, she emerges without burns, her dress untouched by the fire. At eight her dance dazzles a cobra, and at twelve a Guru wishes to take her to Madras to train as a devedasi, one who devotes her life to the sacred art of classical dance.
Staples has set the scene well for we know that Parvati and Meenakshi love each other deeply, and Parvati, who thrills at this future, "felt torn in half, with the two things she loved the most laying equal claim to her heart." This is where readers will feel the power of Staples' work, for she has shown us how the sublime and the mundane mix in Parvati. She is, after all, only an adolescent being asked to devote herself to religion. This same dichotomy makes for questioning as Parvati is troubled by loyalty to a best friend, finds peace and connection while visiting her family, and discovers deep feelings for the Maharaja's son. The depth of Staples' character makes difficult choices meaningful and a foreign culture understandable.
New in tape from Recorded Books is Shiva's Fire (unabridged, 6 cassettes,. Christina Moore is an excellent reader who varies voices well, records emotions faithfully and let me hear prounounced the names and words I wondered about.
Lori Aurelia Williams' When Kambia Elaine Flew In From Neptune (Simon & Schuster, $17.00; ages 11 and up) is a tough read. There is much that seems recognizable to someone from outside the urban, poor African-American culture and yet the book invites readers to take a closer, deeper look.
There's poverty. Shayla Dubois lives in the Bottoms, a poor Houston neighborhood filled with the eccentricities of people who are struggling to survive in very individual ways. But they are individuals who make their community rich with stories. Shayla lives in a single-mother home and her mother works hard to keep the family afloat. Shayla's older sister Tia's womanhood has "called her with a vengeance" and she's sleeping with twenty-three year old Doo-witty "a slow, drop-jawed, long-headed dope" whom the boys playing the Dozens say is "so stupid that he was once fired from the M&M's factory for throwing away all the Ws."
Shayla's Grandma Augustine has a strong presence, though she doesn't live with the family. She calms young Shayla with her Bayou wisdom. She tells Shayla, it's not Doo-witty that's got hold of Tia, "it's a Foot Grabber, a little demon that pushes his way outta hell when girls get about Tia's age, grabs 'em by the foot, and makes 'em cut the fool with no-account men when they ought to know better..." That's what happened to Shayla's mother, who became pregnant at fifteen and both adults are determined to end the affair. But neither Mama's fits, or Grandma Augustine's a voodoo potion rids Tia of the Foot Grabber. And Tia runs away. Shayla accidentally discovers she's with Doo-witty, who, after all the years of judgments as to his slow-witted self, turns out to be an intuitive and talented artist.
When Shayla's no-good sleep-around father is welcomed home by her mother, a superficial judgment might condemn her as a "bad mother". But is she? Not when she searches the neighborhood, defends her daughter's honor and does all she can to steer Tia in the right direction. She's definitely not a bad mother when you compare her to the mother of the strange Kambia Elaine who's recently moved next door.
Kambia Elaine drifts into dream worlds and since Shayla is given to poetry, she accepts these odd bouts of fantasy. Kambia demands secrecy, even when her stories get darker and darker. When Shayla catches her burying flimsy, ripped panties covered in reddish brown splotches, Kambia tells her that the Wallpaper wolves " rip them up with their big sharp teeth, then they chew on them until they are all gross-looking from the poisonous spit in their mouths." It's not until Kambia starves herself to escape her mother's abuse that Shayla gets help.
This is a curiosity. Why in the times of sexual abuse invading the homes of everyone who has a television does no one see Kambia's struggles? In part, the author explains this through the culture. When Grandma Augustine thinks about calling social services, Shayla's mother discourages her, remembering how complaints about a day care center had "the whole neighborhood swarming with state and city folks" who shut down "all of the home businesses in the hood".
The white culture surely doesn't understand. There's the volunteer at the rec center who tosses back Shayla's contest entry as unacceptable. Shayla's done a rewrite of "The Three Little Pigs" using street rhyme and slang, but this volunteer whose company boasts "WE WANT TO HAVE A HAND IN THE ENRICHMENT OF YOUNG MINDS" tells her, "this is not the kind of writing my company was meaning to sponsor...no where in the guidelines did it say this type of ghetto grammar and language was okay." And you understand how this culture has learned to hide its riches and keep quiet about anything out of the norm.