Little Bee by Chris Cleave

Browsing the shelves at independent bookstores introduces readers to extraordinary books.  Chris Cleave is one such discovery, currently on an extensive author tour in the United States.  Cleave, who hails from England, stops in Atlanta on Tuesday, March 2, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. at the Margaret Mitchell House to read from Little Bee.

With respect to the author and publisher’s statement on the back cover (see next paragraph) this review will not elaborate on the plot.  Suffice it to say that Little Bee is unique, surprising, challenging, and brilliantly written.  The situations are believable, not a word Cleave writes gives one pause at its truthfulness.  The story is about the terrible things people do to each other along with the good that some do even when faced with extreme situations.

“We don’t want to tell you what happens in this book.  It is a truly special story and we don’t want to spoil it.  Nevertheless, you need to know enough to buy it, so we will just say this: This is the story of two women.  Their lives collide one fateful day, and one of them has to make a terrible choice, the kind of choice we hope you never have to face.”

Little Bee jumps off the shelf with its bright orange cover.  A black silhouette of a girl embedded with a tiny white silhouette of a woman is intriguing and evocative of artist Kara Walker’s superb black cut paper silhouettes.  Walker explores identity, race, sexuality, violence, and gender in her work, a perfect companion to Cleave’s book.  Coincidentally for Georgia readers, Walker obtained her BFA in painting and printmaking at the Atlanta College of Art.

Creative Writing courses teach would-be novelists that there is a protagonist or main character, the antagonist and supporting characters that move the story along.  Cleave excels at creating appealing, provoking and in depth characters no matter what role they hold.  Narrated in turn by the two finely wrought antagonists, Little Bee and Sarah, the novel moves smoothly between the two points of view integrating the other’s thoughts and actions into the subsequent chapter.  Cleave provides just enough detail of each character’s appearance along with each characters beliefs, cultural orientation and point of view that they all come to life in the reader’s mind.

Sarah’s son in Little Bee is Charlie, aka Batman.  A visit to the author’s website yields a photo of Charlie in full caped crusader regalia.  The eerie image dead on and gives one a taste of how this book will look on the big screen.

Mr. Cleave writes the “Down with the Kids” column for The Guardian newspaper in London (all columns are available on his website) and the wittiness and superb characterization happily bleeds over into his long form writing.  One catches a whiff in these columns of the way Sarah, her husband Andrew, Little Bee, Lawrence, and Charlie interact with each other.  The relationships and how they play out are central to this book that begs to be devoured in one sitting.

Personal stories of the characters are interlaced with political issues in Little Bee though not in a heavy-handed way.  The poignancy is there but not mushy or preachy.  Reading Little Bee spurs one to read Cleave’s first novel and leaves one hungry for the next.

Author Photo Credit: Niall McDiarmid

Jacket Design: Roberto De Vico De Cumptich

Little Bee

By Chris Cleave

Simon and Schuster

ISBN 978-1-4165-8964-8