We all remember the simpler times of our childhood, when we trusted that summer days would be long and filled with fun and that those who loved us would be there forever. In the summer of 1954, Jubie Watts sets out on a road trip with her mother, sisters, little brother, and Mary Luthor, the family's black maid. Mr. Watts is conspicuously absent. As the group drives further south on their trip from North Carolina to Florida, Jubie notes an increasing number of anti-integration messages along the way, and Mary is expected to use separate bathrooms (or outhouses) and to sleep in inferior quarters separate from the family. Mary is acquiescent, subservient, and cooperative in society's desire that she remain as invisible as possible in the deep South.
Jubie is a curious, thoughtful 13-year-old, the hapless victim of her father's alcohol-fueled rages and her mother's self-involvement. This trip is, in fact, a prelude to possible divorce as Paula, Jubie's mother, flees to her brother's home to consider her marriage and her future. Paula's treatment of Mary along the journey is problematical. On one hand, Paula adheres to the local racial segregation rules only loosely, but largely for her own convenience rather than out of indignation. On the other, she fails to recognize the danger to which she is exposing Mary to in this alien world of the Klan and intense racial divisions. When tragedy strikes, Jubie is forced to look at her parents and her world in a different light, knowing that her summers will never again be the carefree summers of childhood.
Mayhew's first novel (at age 71!) is much less complex than "The Help" but examines of the same racial dilemma, the dehumanization of blacks in the south. It's scary that these things were going on during my lifetime, and in many places still are. I would heartily recommend Mayhew's wonderful coming-of-age novel.
ooooh, this sounds good. I think I'll put a hold on it. THanks for the well done review, E.
ReplyDelete-sarah