Introduction

“Funny, sad, and tender… Mimi Herman has written a novel that possesses a true and hard-won understanding of the South.” —David Sedaris, author of Happy-Go-Lucky

Fifteen-year-old Mattie Lee Watson dreams of men, not boys. So when James T. Cullowee, the Kudzu King, arrives in Cooper County, North Carolina in 1941 to spread the gospel of kudzu—claiming that it will improve the soil, feed cattle at almost no cost, even cure headaches—Mattie is ready. Mr. Cullowee is determined to sell the entire county on the future of kudzu, and organizes a kudzu festival, complete with a beauty pageant. Mattie is determined to be crowned Kudzu Queen and capture the attentions of the Kudzu King. As she learns more about Cullowee, however, she discovers that he, like the kudzu he promotes, has a dark and predatory side. When she finds she is not the only one threatened, she devises a plan to bring him down. Based on historical facts, The Kudzu Queen unravels a tangle of sexuality, power, race, and kudzu through the voice of an irresistibly delightful (and mostly honest) narrator.

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Excerpt

You could tell Mr. James T. Cullowee was something from the moment he drove into Pinesboro in his shiny green Chevy truck. He was a man, not like the boys I

knew, with their skinny chests and spotty faces.

That morning, the first Saturday of April, 1941, my mother was shopping with the rest of the mothers in Aronson’s grocery. Every county needs a seat, a place to settle when it gets tired of expanding in all directions, but from what my mama told me, it only took a decade after Pinesboro was incorporated for the townspeople and farmers of Cooper County to start believing they’d emerged from different species. The town folk saw us as inbred idiots up to our ankles in cow manure, while we thought they were helpless do-nothings with an allergy to work. However, despite our differences, the whole county poured into town like grain from a feed sack every Saturday for groceries and gossip.

My father, as always, couldn’t be found where Mama had left him, sitting on the front porch of the feed store, taking a chaw with the other men. He’d wandered into the hardware store next door, where he stalked the cool dark aisles, picking up a handful of fourpenny nails in one aisle, #10 wood screws in the next, letting them sift back into the barrels as he worked out a new project—a fence to keep deer away from Mama’s vegetable gar- den or a pulley system to lower birdfeeders for easier refilling. He was always thinking of a way to solve a hindrance before it became a problem.

Joey, my little brother, played pick-up baseball with his friends in the field behind the drugstore, while our big brother Danny, who was heading off to Ag School in Raleigh come September to learn scientific methods of farming, pitched for both teams. Little girls crowded the sidewalk playing jacks and hopscotch, and bigger girls, country girls like me and town girls from my high school, stood under shop awnings, comparing dresses and

discussing boys. I sat with my best friend Lynnette Johnson on the granite high school steps, watching the town swirl around us like the Cooper River in spring flood.

When the Kudzu King parked in front of the feed store and stepped out onto the running board, everything came to a stop. Mothers paused mid-sentence, men’s tobacco spit splattered silently in Pepsi-Cola bottles, little girls froze in their reach for scattered jacks, and Danny’s next pitch seemed to hang suspend- ed in a long curve to home plate.

The doors on the truck read: “Mr. James T. Cullowee, The Kudzu King,” but you had only to look at him to know he was royalty. Imagine that, a man in a suit and tie when it wasn’t a Sunday, wedding, or funeral. And such a man, with golden hair like the Greek gods we’d studied in junior high. His suit was the forget-me-not blue of his eyes, his white shirt so bright you had to squint to look at him. As for his tie, you couldn’t tell if he’d chosen that green to match his truck or had the truck painted to go with his tie.

He vaulted over the side rail and stood astride a mountain of leafy cuttings. “Ladies and gentlemen of Cooper County, my name is James T. Cullowee, and I’ve come to bring you the crop of the future. More versatile than cotton, more profitable than tobacco, more nutritious than corn—this crop will feed your family and livestock and fill your bank account with cold hard cash.”

Boys abandoned their baseball game. Mothers stepped out from the grocery doorway in small gatherings of curiosity, while girls, little and big, drew closer. Lynnette and I hopped down from the school steps to stand at the back of the crowd.

“Kudzu, the wonder crop!” He picked up a handful of vines and let them flow like a waterfall from his palm. “It’ll grow anywhere you plant it! No plowing, no fertilizer, no weeding, it needs barely a drop of water. Excellent forage for your horses, cattle, and mules, and a ground cover like you’ve never seen.”

The men eased off the feed store porch to the street, where they stood, arms crossed, chaws tucked in their cheeks.

Mr. Cullowee crouched down and offered a piece to a little girl. “Here you go, young lady,” he said to her, “and for you, and you—” to the children gathered around the truck.

“Kudzu, the perfect plant! You can jam it. You can jelly it. It’ll cure headaches and heart attacks. You can grind it into flour or fry it up as a side dish.” He looked each mother in the eye as he handed out his sprigs, though between times he glanced over their heads at the men standing silently on the street.

Like Lynnette and me, most of the high school girls held back, except Glynis Carpentier, a junior with pale skin and black sausage curls who wasn’t known for holding anything back. “Step right up, ladies,” he told the clutch of girls congregated off to one side. “There’s plenty for everyone.” Glynis sauntered over, catching the eyes of all the boys and a few men on her way. I eased in closer. When he handed me a twist of kudzu, his fingers touched mine—and lingered. It was like one of those moments you see in the picture show, when the crowd fades out, leaving a spotlight on the two main characters. Even when an- other girl took my place, I felt his eyes on me. I walked backward

until he spoke to her, then turned and rushed away.

I found Lynnette, who had returned to the school steps. “Don’t you want one?” I sat beside her, watching the Kudzu King. Did he look at any other girl as long as he’d looked at me? “What would I do with it?” She drew up her knees and rested

her chin on them, smoothing her skirt over her bare legs.

She had a point. Whether her family lived on “the barrenest land east of the Mississippi,” as her father claimed, or whether he was just a bad luck farmer a bit on the lazy side, as my father said, nothing much seemed to grow there. Ever since they’d moved to Cooper County, the Johnson farm had kept Lynnette’s family in shoes but not socks.

My daddy owned their land, along with most of the tenant farms down by the river. I suspected he helped them out when they needed it, though he never spoke of it.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” Mr. Cullowee stood up, his truck bed still bursting with green sprigs. A few men had ambled

over, including my daddy, who’d looked at his piece of kudzu as if trying to decipher it. “As you hold in your hands your very own kudzu cutting, I want to tell you about a special gift for you from the United States government. Uncle Sam is prepared to pay every farmer in America five dollars an acre to plant this magnificent crop. That’s not what it will cost you. That’s what the government wants to put in your pocket, without asking a thing in return. With this crop, no act of nature can diminish that rich soil you’ve worked to maintain. Not water, not wind, not even the ravages of time. Friends, our government believes so deeply in the future of kudzu that it is willing to pay you to plant it. And I am here to help make that possible.”

Lynnette touched my chin. “Close your mouth, Mattie,” she said. “You’re gawking.”

“But I’ve never seen—”

“I know,” she sighed. “You’ve never seen a man as handsome as Gary Cooper. You’ve never seen one as suave as Cary Grant. You’ve never seen one as—”

“That’s not fair, and you know it.” I couldn’t take my eyes off Mr. James T. Cullowee as he perched on the tailgate. “Not one of them has ever come to Cooper County.”

He hiked up his trouser legs, revealing yellow argyle socks and black oxfords so shiny I could have done my hair in their reflection. “I’m afraid I can only stay a few minutes more,” he said, his voice low and confidential. “The fine people of Monroe County, Alabama, have asked me to reveal the secrets of kudzu farming, so I’m on my way to lend a hand as they plant their first crop. But in two weeks, I’ll be back, to help you get in your own kudzu crop and to assist you in organizing Cooper County’s first annual Kudzu Festival.

“Picture this.” Mr. Cullowee stood, balancing on his chrome bumper, and spread his arms to encompass Main Street. “Grand- stands lining the sidewalks, kudzu vines draped from lampposts. Your high school marching band playing ‘Stars and Stripes Forev- er,’ followed by your mayor, the town council, and the fine farm- ers and businessmen of Cooper County. And the centerpiece

of it all: a float full of kudzu, graced by a bevy of breathtaking beauties, one of whom will represent Cooper County as your Kudzu Queen, wearing—” he reached into the mass of leaves and pulled out a green velvet case, opening it to reveal a jeweled crown—“this tiara.”

I imagined him placing that tiara on my head, me bowing a little, modestly.

“You plant that little sprig of kudzu I gave you, and by the time I return, you’ll be well on your way to a cellar of your own kudzu flower jelly. Even your cows will be thanking me, saying, ‘Mm-mmm, how soon can I get some of that delicious kudzu?’ It’s a cash crop, a miracle crop. Everything you touch will turn to green. It’ll make every single one of you—man, woman and child—as rich as Croesus.”

He leapt to the ground, and climbed into his truck. “Two short weeks,” he said, “and I’ll be back.” Leaning out the win- dow, he added, “And soon after that, one of you pretty girls will be crowned the Kudzu Queen of Cooper County.”

We watched him drive down Main Street, the crowd parting to let him pass. As his truck diminished in the distance, even the dust that rose behind him seemed magical, lightly tinged with green and gleaming with hope. We were going to be the richest county in North Carolina, and one of us, one lucky girl, was going to be a queen.

I stood on the steps beside Lynnette, stupefied, twirling my kudzu stem. But when I saw Lynnette’s father glaring at us from across the street, I dropped my hand and glanced sideways to make sure she’d seen him. Mr. Johnson didn’t much care for me. He didn’t particularly care for anyone, including his own children. When he gave his customary irritated tilt of the head, Lynnette scuttled to the far side of the street to fall in step with her family. Mr. John- son never wasted a word when an aggravated gesture would do. Lynnette reached a hand to her little sister Aggie, and held out her free arm for Catherine so their mother could get a better grip on the groceries. Catherine was two and a half, but between

Lynnette and her mother, her feet never touched the ground. Before they got to their old gray sedan, Lynnette held up her hand and Aggie’s in a wave. “See you soon,” she mouthed silent- ly, so as not to set her father off. Then she climbed in, holding Catherine on her lap. We waved goodbye until they disappeared, as mournfully as if I were sending her off to war.

Lynnette and I had three and a half years of history between us. We’d met on the first day of seventh grade, a day that had begun poorly when I was panicked out of bed by my alarm clock at five. Just because I got to go to school didn’t mean the chickens didn’t need feeding and the cow didn’t have to be milked, my mother informed me every September. Got to go to school, like it was a privilege. Then, when I was milking Sassafras, she kicked the bucket—not died, which would have been all right by me, but actually kicked the bucket—spilling fifteen minutes of hard work. When I came into the house three cups of steaming milk short, my mother knew exactly what had happened, and had the gall to say to me, “Now there’s a cow who won’t stand to have her teats yanked.” Which I wasn’t doing. Or not much anyway.

So I was not in the best mood when I waited for the bus on my first day at Cooper River Junior High, and matters got worse when my cream-colored first-day-of-school dress—which I didn’t much like anyway, since it made me look even bonier than I already was—got coated with red clay dust, thanks to Mickey Davenport’s rusty Ford pick-up and our stupid dirt road.

Then I arrived at school and discovered that nothing I’d learned in elementary had prepared me for junior high. Danny and a few of his friends had tried to tell me, but, being smarter than everyone in the known universe, I hadn’t bothered to listen. Not only was the day divided into class periods between which students flocked like geese from classroom to classroom, but all the girls I’d thought were my friends had miraculously acquired both boyfriends and breasts over the summer—though I’m not sure in which order—and couldn’t be bothered with an old flat-chest like me any more. So there I was: friendless, confused,

irritated, and on top of that, what had they given me for my first

class of the day, before I was even fully awake?

Home Economics.

Now if it’d had the slightest thing to do with real economics, I would have been okay. Math and science had always been a breeze for me. They had facts. Even English was all right, es- pecially when we got to debate. But no, Miss Eleanora Dunne expected me to bake soufflés and sew ruffled aprons. Me, who could burn water. Me, in whose hand a needle was an instrument of accidental but inevitable self-torture.

Of course nobody wanted to be my kitchen buddy. The other girls had probably linked up weeks before, in the middle of sum- mer, planning for this moment, and now marched blithely arm in arm down the row of stoves to pick the ones they’d share for the rest of the semester. My future was clear: I was going to turn into Miss Eleanora Dunne, who’d never married, and who’d devoted her life to making home and hearth in room 207 of Cooper River Junior High.

“Miss Mattie Lee Watson,” said Miss Dunne, her voice creak- ing with rust. “Please stand before Stove 19.”

“Vesuvius,” that stove was called, though I didn’t know that at the time, despite the fact that it was common knowledge. Most of the other girls had heard about the infamous stove from their older sisters—a commodity my parents had shortsightedly ne- glected to provide me with—which might have been the reason Stove Number 19 was, like me, abandoned.

At that moment, three things happened: the oven door on Number 19 fell open, hitting me sharply on the knee; an anony- mous boy, rushing past the classroom window, which had been raised in the frail hope that a cool breeze might chance by, paused in his passage and let a huge fart, a Notre Dame of a fart, a Bee- thoven’s Ninth of a fart; and Lynnette Johnson—soft, skinny, with wispy pale brown hair and green eyes, strewing apologies like milkweed—flustered into class, came to a halt beside the only partnerless person in the room, and closed the oven door.

Everything you need to know about teenage girls you can

learn by spending five minutes in a henhouse, if you dare. The hens huddle together, clacking a lot without saying much. But if one lets on she’s different, the rest are liable to peck her to death. The other girls’ cafeteria tables were always mysteriously full when I looked for a place to sit, and when they gathered in the halls, planning sleepovers and boy-girl parties, their huddles hushed as I passed, then spilled over with mean laughter. If I planned to survive the henhouse of junior high, and eventually high school, I was going to need an ally. And Lynnette, sweet and innocent as she was, needed one too. There may be better reasons for starting a best friendship, but so far I haven’t heard any. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Mattie has been compared to Scout from the classic To Kill a Mockingbird—what characteristics do Mattie and Scout have in common? How are they different?
2. The Kudzu Queen raises questions of race, class, gender roles, sexuality, and power. How did the events in the book cause you to examine your own assumptions?
3. Did you feel that Mattie was in danger at any point in your reading? What about Lynnette or Rose?
4. Why is Mattie the right narrator for this story? How would the story be different if told from the point of view of a different character? (Lynnette, Danny, Glynis, etc.)
5. Which characters in The Kudzu Queen drew you in? Who was the most relatable and why?
6. What did you notice about the time period and setting of the novel? What’s changed and what has remained the same?

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