Little Sacrifices by Jamie Scott Guest Post and Review

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• I am pleased to have Jamie Scott ( Jamie Scott is the pen name for Michele Gorman, who writes chick lit under her own name) on Celticlady's Reviews today where she will talk a bit about her book and the Ku Klux Klan.
• It’s Not Every Day You Talk to the Ku Klux Klan
  
  
  I got the idea to write Little Sacrifices, a coming of age tale about being caught between two sets of beliefs, because I was very nearly in the main character’s shoes. When I was ten or eleven my Dad accepted a job in Tennessee, which would mean moving from our sleepy Massachusetts town. The job fell through and we stayed in the North, but the idea of being plucked from a society you know and deposited into one you don’t stuck with me. And it’s been a theme in my writing ever since.
  
  
  But fiction writers are truth stretchers. Less kind commentators might say we lie for a living. Where’s the fun in telling a tale as it really happened (or in my case, nearly happened)? Why make it easy for the characters?
  
  
  I set about building my story, setting it in Savannah Georgia. In 1947, when the city was segregated. I made the characters (mother, father and 15 year old daughter) white. They should fit in easily. And they would, but (there’s always a ‘but’) the parents are civil rights advocates. They believe, and have taught their daughter to believe that everyone should be equal. And that’s what gets them into trouble.
  
  
  Truth stretcher though I am, I’m also a stickler for accuracy. It was a side effect of being a professional researcher for 13 years. Since I didn’t live in Savannah Georgia in 1947, I needed a way to “see” the city at that time. Luckily the experts at the Georgia Historical Society were there to help. A lovely woman called Jewell Anderson Dalrymple worked with me for over a year, answering my questions, researching every little detail I put into the book. She photocopied dozens of photos, old phone book and directory pages, newspaper articles, and sent them over to London where I live.
  
  
  As a result I was able to walk the characters through the actual streets of the city. They saw the grand houses as they looked in the mid 40s, many dilapidated, falling down around the ears of the city’s old families. And the faint rumblings of the beginning of the civil rights movement played out in the local actions of a few Savannah citizens.
  
  
  But I still had a problem. The Georgia Historical Society had lots of information about the city’s architecture and people and events, but they didn’t have a lot of detail on one shameful aspect of that time. I needed to know what role the Ku Klux Klan played in Savannah’s history. And for that I had to talk to them myself.
  
  
  This isn’t as difficult as you might think, for they’re still around and many have websites with contact details. All I had to do was call one.
  
  
  But there’s a big difference between being able to do something and wanting to do it. My belly flip-flopped as I dialled. The man who answered was polite. He might have worked in any office in the country. I explained that I was a writer and needed information about the Klan’s activities in Georgia in the 1940s. He asked me to hold, saying he could put me through to their head of communications. Head of communications?! This was not what I’d expected.
  
  
  The head of communications answered my questions without embarrassment. I couldn’t say the same about my questioning! But, I kept reminding myself, I was on the phone with this man to get information, unpalatable though it may be. Yes, he admitted, there were lynchings at that time. He said this was mainly because the laws didn’t protect blacks, implying that racist attacks happened because they were allowed to rather than because the perpetrators were horrid bigots. There was no remorse in his voice. When I asked whether the Klan was active in Savannah he replied, “No, ma’am, but they were right over in Statesboro and more than happy to travel.” That quote will stay with me for the rest of my life.
  
  
  I felt sick when I got off the phone. I still feel sick when I think about it. That call spurred me on to finish the book, to write what I hope is a lovely, ultimately uplifting story set in an uncomfortable time in Southern US history.
  
  
  Lovely readers, please feel free to ask me any questions through the Comments below– I love to chat. And thank you so much, Kathleen, for inviting me on the blog today!
  
  
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About Little Sacrifices

How much would you risk to stand up for your beliefs?

When Duncan and Sarah Powell move with their daughter, May, to Savannah Georgia in 1947, they hope against hope that they’ll be welcomed. But they’re Yankees and worse, they’re civil rights advocates almost a decade too early.

At first May can pretend they’re the same as everyone else. It means keeping quiet when she knows she should speak up, but it’s worth the sacrifice to win friends. Unfortunately her parents are soon putting their beliefs into action. And when they wake to find that they’re the only family on the block with a Ku Klux Klan cross blazing on their front lawn, the time comes for them to finally decide between what’s easy and what’s right.

About the Author
You can read about Jamie Scott (Michelle Gorman) at the link below:
http://michelegorman.co.uk/Site_2/About.html

My Thoughts

Little Sacrifices is a coming of age novel that takes place in 1947 after WWII in Savannah, Georgia. The main character of the story is May who wants nothing more then to go back to her hometown. Her parents are 'free thinkers' and do not fit into the norm. May even calls them by their first names. She does not know anyone and she doesn't understand why they had to move in the first place. She does eventually make friends and finds her place in the town and school. There is an underlying story here too, May finds letters from a relative of her friend Jim. These two stories, even though decades apart, run parallel with each other. There is racial tension also as blacks in the south were definitely a minority with little rights. May was brought up believing that everyone is equal no matter the color so she finds the bigotry and segregation among the townspeople a bit hard to take. May also has some personal choices that she has to deal with and this all fits into a story about growing up and growing up in the south. I liked that at the end of the story, in the epilogue, that the author ties up all the loose ends and lets the reader know what happened to the characters in the story.

I really enjoyed this novel and definitely recommend it, an easy to read, well researched page turner.

I thank the author for the opportunity to review this ebook and was not monetarily compensated for my review.

http://michelegorman.co.uk/Welcome.html