My Mother the Cheerleader (review)

Louise Collins is thirteen years old when her mother pulls her out of school and becomes a "cheerleader"—one of the New Orleans women dressed up in their finest and gathering at William J. Frantz Elementary to protest the integration of schools in the Ninth Ward in 1960. Meanwhile, Louise takes over much of the work of running her mother's boarding house with the help of an elderly black woman named Charlotte. Louise knows that some of the boarders get extra benefits from her very pretty mother, so when a suave yet kind man with New York license plates shows up to rent a room, she is both interested and jealous as her mother kicks her Southern hospitality up a notch. It all goes wrong when he shows up at the school protest, where he's pegged for being a Northern agitator and a Jew, crimes for which he is ultimately murdered, leaving Louise desolate. His murder, however, wakes Louise's mother up to her own culpability, giving Louise some small cause for hope. The intractable despair of crimes that go unanswered weighs heavily on the plot here; Sharenow is unflinching in his portrait of bull-headed Southern bigots who punish women with brutal rape, men with immolation, and children with vicious threats in an attempt to pass their own dismal limitations on to future generations. Louise offers a candid yet sympathetic perspective on her flawed mother, and in doing so she helps readers understand, at least in part, the other side of the familiar Ruby Bridges story.