Did you read 'The Help' by Katherine Stockett? If you did, and liked it, you'll love this.
Dorrie Curtis is a single mother and owner of a single chair hairdressing salon in Arlington, Texas. One of her customers in Isabelle McAllister, an elderly lady who had been born into a privileged family in the whites only town of Shalerville, Kentucky in the 1920s. Dorrie and Isabelle become friends and, when Isabelle is called to a funeral in Ohio, she asks Dorrie to drive her there, a car journey of 2 days.
On the journey, Isabelle tells Dorrie the story of her life; of how, as a naive teenage, she fell in love with Robert, the son of her family's black cook. The love affair reverberates down the years and, through the experiences of of Isabelle and Robert, we see the prejudices, hatred and violence that fuelled the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
What we don't learn, until the heartbreaking final chapter, is the identity of the person Isabelle is travelling to see buried. The reader is desperate for Isabelle to be spared more pain, but Julie Kibler handles this part of the story with delicacy and compassion.
A must read.
Calling me Home is published by panmacmillan, ISBN 978-1-4472-1256-0
No comments:
Post a Comment