“The most powerful and also the most lyrical novel about race, racism, and denial in the American South since To Kill a Mockingbird .” — Lee Smith, author of On Agate Hill “Exquisitely beautiful… The novel grips the reader from its first page and relentlessly drives us to its conclusion.” — William Ferris, author of Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues An atmospheric debut novel about growing up in the changing South in 1960s Mississippi in the tradition of Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees and Kathryn Stockett’s The Help . In the words of Jill McCorkle ( Going Away Shoes ), “Minrose Gwin is an extremely gifted writer and The Queen of Palmyra is a brilliant and compelling novel.” Like Kathryn Stockett’s superhot The Help (2009), The Queen of Palmyra is set in 1960s Mississippi and deals with a segregated society in which black women are paid poorly to raise white people’s children. And like the popular Secret Life of Bees (2002), by Sue Monk Kidd, it is narrated by a confused young girl who can barely process the traumatic events she sees but does not understand. Florence’s abusive father sells burial insurance to black folks who can hardly afford it, and her beleaguered mother drinks as she bakes and sells cakes to shore up the family’s precarious finances. Amid the oppressive heat of summer in 1963 in the small town of Millwood, the neglected Florence is constantly shuttled between her grandparents and their longtime black maid, Zenie, with whom she meets Zenie’s niece, college student Eva Greene. When Eva begins selling burial insurance to pay for her education, simmering racial tensions erupt, and Florence becomes a witness to unspeakable crimes. First-novelist Gwin employs an offbeat, stream-of-consciousness style in this atmospheric depiction of racial hatred in the Deep South. --Joanne Wilkinson ...a brilliant and compelling novel... The beauty of the prose, the strength of voice and the sheer force of circumstance will hold the reader spellbound from beginning to end.” - Jill McCorkle, author of THE GOING AWAY SHOES The most powerful and also the most lyrical novel about race, racism, and denial in the American South since To Kill A Mockingbird....A story about knowing and not knowing, The Queen of Palmyra is finally a testament to the ultimate power of truth and knowledge, language and love. - Lee Smith, author of ON AGATE HILL Divert your reader and, and then “clobber” them, advised Flannery O’Connor. In this bold and brilliant book, Minrose Gwin diverts us with the affecting voice of a child and then clobbers us with the ugly truths of our collective past. I can almost hear O’Connor cheering. - Sharon Oard Warner, author of Deep in the Heart "I need you to understand how ordinary it all was. . . ." In the turbulent southern summer of 1963, Millwood's white population steers clear of "Shake Rag," the black section of town. Young Florence Forrest is one of the few who crosses the line. The daughter of a burial insurance salesman with dark secrets and the town's "cake lady," whose backcountry bootleg runs lead further and further away from a brutal marriage, Florence attaches herself to her grandparents' longtime maid, Zenie Johnson. Named for Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, Zenie treats the unwanted girl as just another chore, while telling her stories of the legendary queen's courage and cunning. The more time Florence spends in Shake Rag, the more she recognizes how completely race divides her town, and her story, far from ordinary, bears witness to the truth and brutality of her times—a truth brought to a shattering conclusion when Zenie's vibrant college-student niece, Eva Greene, arrives that fateful Mississippi summer. Minrose Gwin's The Queen of Palmyra is an unforgettable evocation of a time and a place in America—a nuanced, gripping story of race and identity. Minrose Gwin is the author of three novels: The Queen of Palmyra, Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick and finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Book Award; Promise, finalist for the Willie Morris Award in Southern Literature; and The Accidentals .   In her memoir, Wishing for Snow , she writes about the convergence of poetry and psychosis in her mother’s life. Wearing another hat, she has written four books of literary and cultural criticism and history, most recently Remembering Medgar Evers: Writing the Long Civil Rights Movement, and coedited The Literature of the American South, a Norton anthology. Minrose began her career as a newspaper reporter. Since then, she has taught as a professor at universities across the country, most recently the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Like the characters in Promise , she grew up in Tupelo, Mississippi.