The Dry Grass of August (Library Edition)

Product Description
[This is the Audiobook CD Library Edition in vinyl case.]

In this beautifully written debut, Anna Jean Mayhew offers a riveting depiction of Southern life in the throes of segregation and what it will mean for a young girl on her way to adulthood and for the woman who means the world to her.

On a scorching day in August 1954, thirteen-year-old Jubie Watts leaves Charlotte, North Carolina, with her family for a Florida vacation. Crammed into the Packard along with Jubie are her three siblings, her mother, and the family's black maid, Mary Luther. For as long as Jubie can remember, Mary has been there cooking, cleaning, compensating for her father's rages and her mother's benign neglect, and loving Jubie unconditionally.

Bright and curious, Jubie takes note of the anti-integration signs they pass and of the racial tension that builds as they journey further south. But she could never have predicted the shocking turn their trip will take. Now, in the wake of tragedy, Jubie must confront her parents failings and limitations, decide where her own convictions lie, and make the tumultuous leap to independence.

Infused with the intensity of a changing time, here is a story of hope, heartbreak, and the love and courage that can transform us from child to adult, wounded to indomitable.
Review
''
The Dry Grass of August is a haunting debut about family bonds that stretch without breaking and a panoramic glimpse into an older America and the dying of an age. Young Jubie Watts is the perfect heroine and narrator of this tale with her clear-eyed look at the inconsistencies of the adults around her, and for her courage to ask 'why?' Ms. Mayhew creates authentic characters and a Southern setting that will make you feel and smell a summer day from half a century ago. A beautiful book that fans of
The Help will enjoy.'' --Karen White,
New York Times bestselling author

''Written with unusual charm, wonderful dialogue, and a deeply felt sense of time and place,
The Dry Grass of August is a book for adults and young people both--a beautifully written literary novel that is a real page-turner, I have to add. Fast, suspenseful, and meaningful. I read this book straight through.'' --Lee Smith,
New York Times bestselling author

''Mayhew grew up in Charlotte in the 1950s, so the voices ring unflinchingly true. Jubie is a compelling heroine in the mold of Lily Owens in
The Secret Life of Bees. This mesmerizing story takes place when segregation is being challenged in the highways and byways of the Deep South, no matter what the Supreme Court has ruled. Local color dominates with a tent revival, a traveling carnival, Claxton fruitcakes, sandy white beaches, and white gloves and heels, as the setting emerges as a pivotal character in this important debut novel.'' --
VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates)

''A beautifully written and important novel. Set in the 1950s South, it deals with race relations in an original, powerful way. It's also a great story about complicated family relationships, told with humor, delicacy, and penetrating insight. I wish I had written this book.'' --Angela Davis-Gardner, author of
Butterfly's Child

''Deeply felt, lasting relationships formed in the mid-twentieth-century South between white families and the African American women who took care of them. In
The Dry Grass of August, Mayhew explores the love and conflicting loyalties in one such extended family, adult and child, black and white. She does so with honesty and sympathy, intimate knowledge and valuable perspective, as well as beautiful writing. This is an important story about the Southern experience and the women who helped to form the American generation now at the peak of its powers.'' --Peggy Payne, author of
Sister India

''A must-read for fans of
The Help.'' --
Woman's World

''Mayhew gives readers a compelling and insightful protagonist . . . Mayhew keeps the story taut, thoughtful, and complex, elevating it from t