I cannot recall the last time I read a book set in the South wherein the personality and cadence of the dialogue was pitch-perfect. Jonathan Odell goes way deeper than Southern parlance in “Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League;” he delves right into the middle of Mississippi’s idiomatic speech, much of which is expressed by suggestion. The vernacular in this book tells half the story, and because of its spot-on attitude, we know more of the characters than any well-written descriptive paragraph could ever depict.
Set in the small Delta town of Delphi, it is the 1950’s, and segregation, prejudice and class division are an issue. After Hazel Ishee, who comes from little, meets the charismatic Floyd Graham in the Rexall Drug Store in Tupelo, they marry and move to Delphi because Floyd has big dreams of starting his own car dealership. Amidst a town set in its ways and customs, they begin a life together in which Hazel knows she does not fit in. As a loner in Delphi, her ways blossom into an eccentricity the entire town talks about, then the cruel hand of fate steps in to exacerbate her isolation, which doesn’t begin to mend until Floyd hires Vida as the family’s maid. Vida has an agenda in accepting the position, which has to do with her history with the local sheriff, who lives next door. As Hazel and Vida’s relationship evolves from one of mutual suspicion to friendship, the division between the races is explored and bridged, and the reader comes to learn that no one person exists in this small town without effecting its whole. This is a fast paced, thrilling book that takes a heavy era in time and infuses it with quirky humor. The characters are well drawn and representative of certain sects of society without being campy. It is a story of people who seek to be more than they are, only to realize they have been enough all along. ( )

The tailored-for-bookclubs-title nothwithstanding, this was a pretty good read. Intertwining stories of two women, one white and one black, in small town Mississippi in the 1950's, it touches on various aspects of the early civil rights movement, a woman's sense of herself, and the importance of knowing and telling your own story. There are good women and bad men in it; there are also men who are not quite as bad as they think they are; women who are no better than they ought to be (that was my grandmother's gentle way of referring to women she liked all right, but didn't quite approve of); at least two very good men, and a whole lot of in-between people. Odell pokes fun at the foibles of humanity, and is not at all hesitant to give us irreverent one-armed bar-tenders, ancient one-eyed black women and clueless daddies who don't know what to do about their sons who hate wearing jeans and would rather play with homemade dolls than learn about baseball. All of the characters, with one exception, are sympathetic, at least to some degree. That exception, the Senator, is nobody's favorite human within the story. Black and white, rich and poor, male and female (including his fine wife) all have his number. He can make things happen, but no one admires him for it. There are hints of The Help in the way a group of black maids come to matter to one white woman in particular, and to the community as a whole. But in this novel these women seem to have a firmer grasp on their own stories right from the start, and the association between Miss Hazel and her own maid, Vida, begins with Vida holding all the cards. I enjoyed this story even while a part of my brain knew some of it is rather fanciful. The best comparison I can make is to Fannie Flagg's marvelous Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe. The book has recently been revised and re-issued, having originally been published in 2004 under the title The Road to Delphi. The author's note makes me believe that revision was probably a good idea, and I suppose changing the title was a smart marketing move, but I'd rather they hadn't done that. ( )

Miss Hazel and Vida have been sitting in my Kindle for sometime snapping their fingers for my attention but I told them they had to wait and be patient. Last weekend I sat down with a cup of sweet tea and settled into their story. I want to thank Maiden Lane Press and Edelweiss for the advance e-copy of this book in exchange for my review.

The book opens with a very dramatic scene with Vida, a house maid to the Graham family climbing a big hill to start her day; this symbol of the uphill struggle is very significant throughout the book. She is stewing in her mind about the loss of her child and of her father, Levi, a man of deep Christian faith, who had come home late "with wild talk of visions…going on about God giving him a new story to live."

She looks up to the house and spots little Johnny hunched on the front steps. His father, Floyd Graham, steps out of the house and watches her approach. "Oh, Lord, something about this don't look right already." We learn that Johnny and Vida had a falling out the day before and Vida had been rough with him. She expects the Sherriff, who lives next door, to come out brandishing his pistol. God only knows what tale the child told his father.

Mr. Floyd asks if she is feeling better after leaving early with a headache the day before, which is course is not the truth, and she thinks, " that little devil can lie like a convict. But Why?"

Before Mr. Floyd leaves for work he asks where she found a number of personal items like cuff links and silver that had gone missing. The supposition that the help had helped herself is obvious.

A lengthy dialogue continues with Vida and Johnny having, presumably, their first positive interaction. Vida is still fired up as she sees the raw emotions driving Johnny's rebellious nature as he deals with the death of his brother and the subsequent severe depression of his mother. Vida's manner toward Johnny softens but internally she slams around the kitchen as she reflects on her life and her losses too.

Miss Hazel and Vida both have been dealt a bad hand in life but the difference, Miss Hazel can get drunk, sulk and stay in bed all day. Vida has to suffer in silence and take up the heavy mantle for both of the families. "Lord, give me strength to help this child without killing his Momma first."

All the major elements of this novel are laid before us in these first pages. The fleshing out of each character's life is heartbreaking; all the more because the fiction is reflective of reality in 1950s Mississippi.

Fans of Fried Green Tomatoes will love the Iggy-like character of Miss Hazel behind the wheel of her Lincoln; or even more… maybe Twanda! Others will see a little of Sipsey in Vida and learn that she has a secret in her sauce too. The story also has the flavor of The Help. I won’t give away the punch line but there is one scene with Miss Hazel driving the Lincoln packed full of black maids that is hysterical. This novel stands ahead of all those books mentioned; it is more intense, more serious yet at the same time entertaining, instructive, humorous and hopeful.

The evil Sheriff, big-haired ladies in the big houses, the old-boys club, and righteous white supremacy stomp throughout the book. As I made my way through Delphi, I felt furious, angry, embarrassed, ashamed, proud and every other emotion expected when evil spits in the face of the helpless and less advantaged. The men in the book had me ready to carry a pitchfork and a pistol. Miss Pearl and the evil sisters, bless their little hearts, made life hell for those they perceived as " white trash" like Hazel or "sub-human" like Vida.

This books is highly recommended reading; especially readers interested in the evolution of the civil rights movement.

I do want to mention that this book was first published as The View from Delphi, in 2004 and received great reviews but limited distribution. A new publisher, Maiden Lane Press saw a great future in a second release. The author, Jonathon Odell said in an interview, "the new title and cover better reflect the promise of the book, i.e. a 1950’s small-town Southern setting, an intimate feeling of family and friendship, a twining of black and white story lines, and an irreverent strain of humor."
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Southerners are often portrayed in literature and the media as uneducated, bigoted racists. There are some Southern folks who fit into this easily pigeonholed categorization but the reality is often much more complex and nuanced than that, even in the pre-Civil Rights era. Jonathan Odell looks at these complicated racial relationships in small town, 1950s Mississippi in his newly reworked novel, Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League, a National Reading Group Month Great Group Read.

Hazel and Vida loathe and distrust each other. They share a terrible similarity, each having lost a son, but they are not friends. Forced together by circumstance, Hazel's husband has hired Vida as their maid after Hazel's drunken accident following the death of her boy, the two women, one white and one black, are wary and resentful of each other. Hazel is from poor white hill people but her husband is forward thinking and successful. No matter how many Lincolns he sells, he can't buy her way into the top echelon of society in Delphi though; she will always be an outcast. Vida is the protected daughter of a black preacher who often acts as the good faith go-between between the black community and the whites with power. But even her daddy's status cannot save Vida from the dangerous and mean Billy Dean Brister, county bully and Sheriff. She is still a powerless black woman who must work for a white family to earn a living and must endure the terror and threats of the hateful and racist in the town. As these two women grudgingly spend time together, they come first to a truce and eventually to the complicated relationship that allows them to join together with the other disenfranchised, maids and prostitutes, to expose and resist the evil in town.

Odell is ever mindful of the clear, unwavering racial divide in small Southern towns and he shows the varying types of racism that abide therein: unconscious, entrenched and courtly, institutionalized, and rabid and volatile. He also touches on class and the ways that it can contribute to oppression, both as a unifying force and as a divisive one. The characters here are fascinating, even if certain of them are occasionally stereotypical. The events of the novel are firmly set in the historical context of major Civil Rights events, showing that there were movements, small than on a nationwide scale, occurring all over, mirroring and encouraging those well known actions. The pacing was fairly slow and the hard work of Hazel and Vida's changing relationship was mostly passed over but the ideas of segregation, the power of hatred, making a stand, loss, motherhood, and corruption shine throughout all the varied threads of the narrative. The challenge to the racist status quo is well done although it is somewhat troubling that it takes a white woman's involvement to rally the black women's community to action. Odell's novel builds on a wealth of well written Southern novels that go before him, broadening our view of the time without trivializing, sentimentalizing, or demonizing the people and the place as a whole. He shines another light on the bravery and power of the dismissed and repressed to change their (and our) world even in the face of hatred. This is a story to pay attention to. ( )

Hazel grew up one of many children in a rural southern town, but she was determined to get more out of life and found a job in a pharmacy. One customer, Floyd, swept Hazel off her feet with his ideas for business and outlook on life. Soon, Hazel and Floyd are married and settled in Delphi, Mississippi where Floyd sells vehicles. Hazel is expected to be a society lady, but doesn't quite fit in. She does, however find contentment in driving. Hazel begins a family with Floyd and has two healthy boys, but still has trouble seeing herself as a good mother. When her youngest son dies in a tragic accident, Hazel is devastated and slips into drinking and depression. Floyd hires Vida as a maid and to take care of Hazel. Vida takes the position to try to enact revenge on Hazel's neighbor, the sheriff who is responsible for Vida having to give up her son. Hazel and Vida don't exactly see eye to eye, but they are able to come together over the loss of their sons and the racial discrimination that Vida and the other maids face. Together, Hazel and Vida will prove an unstoppable force in campaigned for civil rights in the Deep South.

I completely fell in love with this story and the characters. More than anything, it took me back to Mississippi in the 1950’s. From the manner of speech, Hazel’s many “I swan’s” and Floyds motivational quotes to Hazel’s interior decorating choices and Vida and her father’s experiences made everything very realistic. Hazel and Vida also brought this book alive. Even more than their quest for Civil Rights, the book is about Hazel and Vida’s own growth. Both women are broken over the loss of their sons. Hazel turns to drinking and Vida turns to revenge. Their struggle with what it means to be a mother and their growth as characters during this time in history is what is really highlighted for me. The Civil Rights movement is what allows the women to move on. I really appreciated the author’s authenticity with women being the driving force behind many of the protests and movement of information at the time. I felt like this gave me a great look into another piece of the Civil Rights movement that I never would have known.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review. ( )