Time for the Wild About Books monthly book selection.  After a dry spell of not so good books, I’m happy to present a beautifully written southern novel set in the 1950’s.  I love southern novels, the food and the special southern way of speaking. The juxtaposition of having a black woman raise your children but make her sit out in the hot car to eat her dinner because she is not allowed in the restaurant.  I also like the setting of the 1950’s.  A decade that is remembered, by most, from the warm, loving and witty families of the TV.  It was all perfect.  What a great decade.

Was it really?

There was racial tension, female suppression, corporal punishment; makes you want to grow your hair out, do drugs and  love one another.  Perhaps the 50’s looked  good compared to the depression  of the 30’s and the world war of the 40’s.  It’s all relative.

Everybody has their decade. I’m a bi-decade late 70’s early 80’s.  My kids are from the zero’s.  I don’t know what you’re supposed to call that decade.  If you’re from the zero’s or the ten’s you should just not have a decade attached to you.  Skip that part. Tell them you’re a Pisces.  Get the subject changed.  John Cougar Mellencamp is not going to write a song called “It was the summer of zero zero”.

What did I do last night?  Stayed up really late and finished the December book selection.  I couldn’t put it down.  It wrecked me.  Stayed up late, slept in, missed yoga.  The book took over my being.

I was arguing with myself

“…… savor it, finish tomorrow”

“No!  Finish it”.

“You should go to sleep”

“One more chapter”.

“You might as well finish it now”

I finished it.  What a well-written book. It’s  Charlotte, NC native, Anna Jean Mayhew’s first novel and it’s a winner.  I highly recommend “The Dry Grass of August”.  Even if you’re not from the south, you’ll enjoy the characters and their struggles in a society and a decade that needs more exploration and explanation.

This book is available at the Darby Public Library as soon as I return it.

Wild About Books blog is a seriously great resource for book lovers.  Check it out.