Coming-of-age novel Scent of the Lilies sensitively explores family, adoption, bullying

Title: Scent of the Lilies

Author: T.S. Riley   

ISBN:   9798218406721, paperback, $17.95

Publisher: T.S. Riley Books

Buy here.

What begins as a Bildungsroman novel about bullying becomes a novel of depth about family, empathy, recognizing pain, and rebuilding through adoption. T.S. Riley writes of the simple beginnings of this story in the novel’s endnotes: “When I sat down at my computer…it was with a simple idea to write a short story about a boy who was ruthlessly bullied to the point where he had no choice to fight back.” In capturing this story, he creates a wonderful novel of shaping and reshaping family as a kaleidoscope of family for one boy.  Riley, himself, was bullied as a child and so the scenes in which the primary character Imari is bullied portray the realistic escalation of unresolved bullying. He’s is a young boy who is saved by the love and understanding of his mother Imani, who takes him to a pond where she tells the stories of sharecroppers and connections. Of the trees, she says, “Their roots are all interconnected. They understand each other. They are all fighting for the light and, sometimes, in their pursuit of it, they block out another tree’s chance at the sun.” The loss of light proves to be a metaphor for the bullying Imari experiences from a fellow student named Bruce who begins with name calling and shaming Imari by claiming him as a mama’s boy and bedwetter. Soon Bruce is shoving Imari and hitting him. Through Imari’s eyes, we learn that Bruce is himself bullied by a brutal father. His loss of light becomes Imari’s loss of light. Imari’s mother is the light that is able to shine through the branches in Imari’s forest of people.

Imari also experiences a father who, on his best days, ignores him, and on his worst, makes it clear he thinks his son should fight back. Imari decides that his best defense is no defense and so he keeps the secret of his bullying, which usually occurs at school, to himself. His classmates seem to keep this code of silence in recognizing that to tell on Bruce is to allow Bruce to redirect his sights to bully them. It is the stories Imari’s mother tells him that lead to empathy, at least, up to the point when Bruce beats Imari and threatens to kill him.

While this bullying is a driving force in the novel, hope and redemption are promised when Imari meets a new neighbor, Andrea, a child in a Caucasian family, all of whom embrace both Imani and Imari who are Black. Andrea witnesses the bullying and, while too afraid to call it out at school, she does talk to her family about Imari’s need for protection and the fact that his own father is no help. Andrea’s friendship with Imari builds and Andrea’s father takes Imari under his wing to show him how to build and fix things, which provides the nurturing that will help Imari survive.

Tragedy strikes when Imari’s mother dies of cancer. Imari is crushed, believing, “There is no point in having dreams or loving your family. It will all be ripped away from you. Better to just not have any dreams of love at all.”

Imari doesn’t believe he’ll ever feel hope again or joy again. His father, in his own grief, takes to heavy drinking while ignoring his son’s grief and needs completely. He feels isolated and alone.

Andrea’s family is not going to let that hopelessness overshadow Imari’s life. They protect him from Bruce and Andrea’s father, even defending Imari when he responds to Bruce’s bullying with his own force. For Imari, this is a moment when “Even the smallest light can dispel the darkest of darkness.” The family honors a promise they made to his mother Imani when she asked that they adopt Imari and raise him. He thus avoids the stark reality that faces many older children in his situation. According to the Adopt America Network, “Over 20,000 children age out of foster care every year without a family to call their own.” Imari becomes an example of what can take place when older children are adopted by loving parents. His adoption is one of about 40% of US interracial adoptions to occur annually, according to Karen Valby who wrote about what parents of interracial adoption should know for Time Magazine. The moment when race and culture intertwine is a moment when the adults look at reality and decide, “There was no ignoring the fact that we were living in the South, raising a black son. Even though we were twenty years past the Civil Rights movement, many people were going to have their opinion about it and Imari would struggle with things that we would never truly understand. But I intended to make it my duty to learn everything I could and make sure he never felt like he needed to deny his heritage to fit into this family.”  

According to Valby’s research in “The Realities of Raising a Kid of a Different Race,” color does matter and parents should talk to their children about race to prepare them for the world so that they’re not blindsided when racism occurs. She also points out, “There’s an impulse in the adoption conversation to paint the parent as a savior.” While Riley does paint Imari’s adoptive family as saving him from the brutality of bullying and a father who’s so steeped in his own grief and failures, Riley makes it clear, Imari’s adoptive parents recognize their own shortcomings and need to learn along with Imari. In doing so, Riley portrays a loving, although flawed, family, one with deep connections that grow through an honest and open relationship. Riley captures the reality that “race and identity is on a continuum over an adoptee’s lifetime,” that this family’s and adoptee’s work at emotional growth is never done.

This sweet novel depicts that growth even as it portrays the harsh realities of bullying and racism as these shape a child’s early understanding of the world and his future choices. Readers will find themselves falling in love with Imari and rooting for his growth as his new family embraces him completely.

Reviewed by Ann Angel.