Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books

Lula is the novel’s antagonist. She covets the attention and respect that Beverly receives and decides to steal these by instilling fear in the community. Lula has long been considered the town crank. After her husband’s death and the disappearance of her two children, she has no focus other than resentment of Beverly’s social status. Purely by accident, Lula stumbles across a book of erotic cake recipes in the town library that someone left as a prank. This event inspires her to prey on the community’s fears that their children are being groomed by LGBTQ+ people, and she starts a campaign to purge the library of books that she considers offensive.

Lula recognizes that fear is a tactic for gaining power. Her ability to manipulate the parents in Troy raises her profile in the community, and she becomes the last word on wholesome reading material. Like many of her neighbors, Lula deflects attention away from her own life by focusing on others. Her children produce a popular drag show in Atlanta, something she vehemently opposes. Lula enjoys reading erotic romances, a pastime that conflicts with the public-facing profile she cultivates for her community. When both these facts come to light, her stance as a leader of conservative values is compromised. Ultimately, Lula must relinquish her hold over the minds of the citizens of Troy, demonstrating minor character growth. She finds her own happy ending by relocating to Atlanta to live with her children.

Lindsey is Beverly’s college-age daughter. She is a defiant rebel who recognizes the hypocrisy of the people in Troy. Part of the reason for Lindsey’s status as an outsider is the fact that she is lesbian, though she describes herself as “gay.” She helps her mother unwittingly rise to the role of hero by substituting the town’s banned books for the tasteful titles in Lula’s library. Lindsey’s actions set the novel’s plot in motion, but she is away from town during the time that the seeds she planted begin to sprout.

Lindsey returns at a turning point in the story. Her glee turns to dismay when she mistakenly believes that Logan’s death by suicide was spurred by his reading of The Catcher in the Rye. Consequently, she is racked with remorse and feels like it may have been better if she did not upset the status quo in her hometown. It takes the combined efforts of her mother and half the people in Troy to persuade her that she did a good thing by pranking Lula’s library. This leads Lindsey to stay true to her convictions.

Mitch is a 60-year-old man who has capitalized on his large physical size as an actor in Hollywood by specializing in villain roles. A born and raised resident of Troy, he leaves his hometown behind until it offers him the chance to launch a political career. Mitch’s role in the novel is complex. Initially, the narrative depicts him as a thoughtless opportunist, only interested in self-promotion, but his character grows in complexity throughout the text.

Mitch’s affiliation with Trump and MAGA slowly erodes as he sees the destructive ways people turn on each other when they are forced into taking sides. He says,

I’m gonna write a screenplay for myself. Something with a happy ending. Everybody’s so fucking angry these days. I wanna see a bunch of people coming together to fix a bad situation instead of bitching and moaning all the fucking time (286).

This decision allows him to revitalize his acting career by playing his greatest villain role—Augustus Wainwright. Mitch demonstrates his loyalty to his hometown and his family when he gifts the family farm to his brother and sponsors the Wright-Wainwright family reunion.

Logan is a small, intense young man of 20. The narrative initially depicts him as a villain until it reveals the full extent of his upbringing. As a child, Logan’s father, a local judge, emotionally abused him, regularly physically assaulted his wife, and rejected his son for being worthless. Like everyone else in Troy, Logan is labeled based on his family’s social status. Thus, no one would believe the son of a judge if he complained of ill-treatment at home. As a result, Logan’s desperation causes him to take the only escape route he sees by killing his father and passing it off as a hunting accident.

As an adult, Logan drifts without any sense of purpose. Other characters in the novel sense his driftlessness and describe him as “not right” or “lost.” Inevitably, Logan falls under the sway of a man with a cause, Nathan Dugan, and falls into neo-Nazism. One extreme cause leads to another as Logan also gets drawn into Lula’s book-banning crusade. His black-and-white mentality leads him to believe that anybody who doesn’t share his beliefs must be eliminated. He nearly kills Isaac Wright and plans a massacre in the town square on the day of the Wright-Wainwright family reunion. This plan falls apart when Logan Delvin and Jeb corner him. Seeing no way out, Logan once again chooses a fatalist solution, shooting himself and dying by suicide.

Isaac is a 17-year-old Black resident of Troy. He is academically driven and becomes the high school’s first Black valedictorian. He is gay, and his conservative Baptist family has trouble accepting this fact. His mother blames herself for being a bad parent who “turned” her son gay. His father is a staunch supporter of Lula’s book ban. Isaac’s younger brother, Elijah, is afraid his big brother will burn in hell.

Despite the pressure to conform, Isaac is determined to be his own person. He is a secondary protagonist in the novel and assists Beverly in her campaign to rid Troy of intolerance. When Isaac learns that he is a descendant of Augustus Wainwright, he makes a public announcement and calls for the removal of Wainwright’s statue from the town square. His DNA research propels the plot forward by identifying all the Black descendants of the plantation owner. Once Isaac joins forces with Beverly, both the Black and white contingents of the family strive for change because they find safety in numbers. What neither Isaac nor Beverly could accomplish alone becomes possible when they partner together to challenge the status quo.

Wilma is an 85-year-old widow who has lost interest in life. Her listless behavior convinces her family that her mental faculties have declined. In reality, Wilma simply needs a challenge. As a former defense lawyer and district attorney, she possesses formidable legal skills but has allowed these to atrophy through lack of use. Even Lula’s book ban doesn’t rouse her out of her torpor. Ironically, it takes a scheming relative who stole one of her pictures to make her spring into action and create an intricately designed erotic birthday cake to prove her mental competence to her family.

With the help of her great-granddaughter, Wilma finally finds some causes worth defending. She volunteers to handle the Ronnie Childers case for illegal possession of mushrooms and defends Lindsey when she is accused of stealing Lula’s books. This demonstrates her community-minded, giving nature and passion for supporting causes in which she believes. While Wilma isn’t a protagonist, she becomes a cultural hero in Troy for people like Nahla Crump, who later immortalizes her in her book, The Heroes of Troy, Georgia.