SIGNED by AUTHOR, FIRST KENSINGTON PAPERBACK EDITION. April 2011 deluxe(w/ flaps/deckle edges)trade paperback, Anna Jean Mayhew (Tomorrow's Bread). 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. - Amazon 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, from wounded to indomitable. Author Q&A with Anna Jean Mayhew Q: You're a seventy-one-year-old first-time novelist. What made you decide to write a novel at this age? A: Actually, I didn't get such a late start; my first national publication was a short story when I was forty-five. That was so thrilling that I decided maybe this writing business was something I should take seriously. Then life happened and it was another two years before I wrote the first paragraph--in 1987--of what became The Dry Grass of August . I joined a group of accomplished writers and quickly realized that I had a lot to learn and that a novel was not something I could dash off while working full time. Eighteen years later I finished it and got a fine agent right away. When he sold it to Kensington, I was almost seventy. Q: You grew up during the time of Jim Crow laws in the South. What happened in that time that spurred you to write this novel? A: As a teenager I was aware that I lived in an all-white, mostly Protestant community. But my real consciousness did not start until 1970 (sixteen years after the 1954 decision in Brown v. Board ), when forced busing went into effect and my fourth- and fifth-grade children were assigned to an inner-city school. Compared with the nice white elementary a block from our house, the conditions at the formerly all-black school were abysmal, a graphic example of the inequity of the doctrine of separate but equal. I became long-time friends with a young mother of two who was living a life similar to mine, except that I was white and she was black. One summer afternoon in 1972 we took our children to a public swimming pool in Cabarrus County, NC. The owner of the pool stopped us at the gate and said he would close the place down before he'd admit my friend and her children. Almost two decades after the official overturning of Jim Crow laws, social segregation was alive and well. Q: Your two main characters are 13-year-old Jubie, a white teenager, and 47-year-old Mary, a black domestic. As you wrote the book, was it hard to get inside two such different characters? A: Yes, at first I had great difficulty capturing Mary's spirit, given how invisible she is in her role as a "colored maid" in a white upper-class southern home. Over time her moral character, her strength, and her commitment to Jubie emerged. In Chapter Six, she's been working for the family a year or so, and Jubie is beginning to be aware of what a difference Mary makes to the peace in the home. That's when I began to see those things myself and to realize Mary's true importance to the family. Jubie matured as I wrote the book; at first I had her as being quite innocent, emotionally younger than her actual age. I began to pay close attention to 13-year-old girls, to really listen to them. Jubie turned out to be far more mature and much wiser than my initial conception of her. Her wisdom and curiosity surfaced when I let her have her head. Q: In an early critique someone told you that Mary Luther comes across as a female Uncle Tom. What was your reaction to that? A: An African American teenager made that comment. I was grateful when she agreed