The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
Written before her fictional best-seller, The Secret Life of Bees,
this memoir "gives voice to the ways in which we experience a
disconnect with the culture in which we were raised," says Ashley Judd, who
sees similarities between herself and Kidd: "Like me, Sue is a Southern
Christian woman born and raised in a household that revolves around the
church." The most resonant moment for Judd is one that evokes the
contradictory ways society sees women—in a scene where Kidd is admiring
her teenage daughter diligently stocking a shelf at the drugstore where
she works. "Suddenly two men walk by and one says, 'Now that's how I
like to see a woman—on her knees.' Kidd realizes that her daughter was
one particular woman in that moment, and she was also every woman. It
was amazing."
— As told to Sara Nelson
