Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books

This incisive comedy from Miller (The Change) finds a Georgia town transformed amid a fight over book bans. Lula Dean, a restless empty nester who’s starved for attention, finds purpose by banning books she deems inappropriate for children, among them Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Furthering her crusade, Lula stocks a makeshift lending library in front of her house with “appropriate” titles like The Southern Belle’s Guide to Etiquette. Lindsay Underwood, a lesbian teen, takes action by sneaking banned books into the lending library under the cover of dust jackets belonging to Lula’s approved books. As various townspeople read the works Lula meant to ban, they start changing their lives and the town for the better (a formerly subservient woman outs her husband for secretly collecting Nazi memorabilia; a high school football star comes to accept his gay older brother; and a group of teens rally against the town’s Confederate monuments). The story climaxes with a heated race for town mayor between Lindsay’s mother, Beverly, who vehemently opposes the book bans, and Lula. While some of the plot turns strain credulity, they make for a clever send-up of book banners’ misplaced fears. Miller’s fans will flock to her latest page-turner as social critique. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME. (June)