Little Bee
I'm Kim Alexander and this is Fiction Nation, smart reviews for modern readers on Sirius XM Book Radio. The book is Little Bee by Chris Cleave.
How many stories turn on the phrase, "And then the men came..."? Knowing nothing else about the speaker, the location, or the context, you know the outcome will be dire at best and probably fatal. Is it any wonder there are armies of refugees on the move all the time? What would you do if you were at home, working in your garden, changing the oil, cooking dinner, and then the men came? You'd get out with the clothes on your back and your kids if you were that lucky. Why don't we have more sympathy for refugees? Why aren't they the heroes of the 70s? Remember the Soviet scientists, the Cuban athletes? Is it because 'the men' and their victims are combatants in places so very far away? The good guys and the bad guys, who knows which is which? It's more expedient to help the enemy of your enemy, after all.
That's the plight of Chris Cleave's Little Bee, a young Nigerian woman who sees her world upended in a spasm of brutality — the men came to her village, and she got out, but not without cost. She crosses paths with a different sort of refugee, a posh Londoner named Sarah who's an outcast from the normal married life she was counting on. This book is a fascinating look at this collision of the first world and the third, told partially in the unforgettable voice of Little Bee herself — a normal girl — not a hero, but possessing enormous wit and charm. The character of Sarah is more problematic and harder to like, but I'd be hard pressed to find a villain in this book, other than 'the men' of course.
Hear my interview with Chris Cleave on Fiction Nation, on Book Radio, Sirius 117 and XM 163.
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