Dimensions
152 x 226 x 33mm
Florence Forrest lives in Millwood, in 1963, a town like any other in the South at that time: segregated. Millwood proper is white. Shake Rag is the 'coloured' side of town. Florence's father is a burial insurance salesman and a ne'er-do-well with dark secrets. Her mother, the local cake lady, is stuck in a marriage that has strayed far from her educated and liberal upbringing, making secret trips to the local bootlegger..
This leaves Florence with Zenie, her grandparent's longtime maid. Zenie, named for Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, drags Florence around and generally thinks of the girl as just another chore. As Florence spends more and more time in Zenie's home in Shake Rag, she develops a sense for how race truly divides her town, but nothing prepares her for what happens when Zenie's niece, the vibrant college student, Eva Green, comes to stay for the summer. And so Florence, who has moved fluidly between two families, between two races, finds herself stuck in the middle, a witness to the brutality and the truth of her times.
