The Murderer’s Daughters
This debut novel by Randy Susan Meyers is a powerful story about sisters whose alcoholic father murders their mother in front of them and then tries, unsuccessfully, to kill both younger daughter Merry and himself. What follows is a 30 year journey of older sister Lulu and Merry from an orphanage to adulthood. Ultimately “a crisis that eerily mirrors the past forces Lulu and Merry to confront what happened years ago.”
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
Sue Monk Kidd (The Mermaid’s Chair, The Secret Life of Bees), describes her spiritual journey from her strict Southern Baptist upbringing to her “nontraditional feminist spiritual experience.” At the heart of the book is a critique of patriarchal Christianity, but the book is written for all audiences interested in spiritual awakening. (And yes, Gents, there is a lot you can learn from this book despite its feminist bent). What Kidd ultimately tackles is her “fear of dissension, confrontation, backlash, a fear of not pleasing, not living up to sanctioned models of femininity.”
Both books are available at the Appleton Public Library.