Kirjailijakuva

Minrose Gwin

Teoksen The Queen of Palmyra tekijä

10+ teosta 551 jäsentä 29 arvostelua

Tietoja tekijästä

Minrose Gwin is the author of the memoir Wishing for Snow (LSU Press2004). She has written 3 scholarly books and has co-edited The Literature of the American South (Norton). Gwin currently teaches at UNC Chapel Hill. Wishing for Snow is her debut novel. (Bowker Author Biography)

Includes the name: Minrose C. Gwin

Tekijän teokset

The Queen of Palmyra (2010) 212 kappaletta
Promise (2018) 138 kappaletta
The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology (1997) — Toimittaja — 98 kappaletta
The Accidentals: A Novel (2019) 51 kappaletta
Wishing for Snow: A Memoir (2004) 20 kappaletta
The Feminine and Faulkner (1990) 12 kappaletta
Remembering Medgar Evers (2013) 8 kappaletta

Associated Works

Every True Pleasure: LGBTQ Tales of North Carolina (2019) — Avustaja — 9 kappaletta

Merkitty avainsanalla

Yleistieto

Jäseniä

Kirja-arvosteluja

1957, Opelika, Mississippi. June and Grace's mother Olivia McAlister makes the bad decision to have a backwoods abortion. This decision leads to her death and June and Grace's lives forever changed. Their father Holly can't really deal with the loss, and Olivia's unmarried sister tries to help them out. Then, tragedy strikes again when Grace becomes pregnant and has to go away to give birth in secret so nobody would know. Back home June is waiting. She's the one that told their father about the pregnancy and she feels that it is all her fault. Now she waits for her sister to come home again. However, Grace will never really recover from the ordeal of giving up her baby and the sister's life will never be as it was before.

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MaraBlaise | 5 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Jul 23, 2022 |
This book was totally entertaining!

The story takes place in 1936, in Tupelo MS, and is based on the true events about a tornado that tore through the town, and devastated neighborhoods. The historical aspect, aside from the horrendous damage and loss of life caused by the storm, was the difference in treatment of blacks and whites during this tragic event. The author found out, for example, that the death count of black people was not being kept up with. Overall the death toll was 200 people and hundreds were injured.

Side note: The tornado, on record as an F5, the strongest one can get, was so powerful, pine needles were embedded in tree trunks. I read this later, after I finished the book.

The details of how a disaster like this was managed was really interesting. Box cars were used for shelter by those who lost their homes, and because of limitations, I assume, they had to be shared. A theater was set up for managing the injured.

I loved how Gwin altered the story between Dovey, the black launderess, and Jo, a young teenaged white girl, who knew Dovey because she did their laundry. Dovey knew more about the McNabb's than they realized, because of their clothing she washed. Secrets propel the characters to act in certain ways. Jo has hers, and Dovey has hers, too.

The creativity that went into the overall story was captivating, and I found each character's voice particularly strong. Dovey is dealing with her anger and disappointment over an act committed against her granddaughter, Dreama. Promise, her great-grandson, is the result of that act.

Jo hides behind an event she calls the trick, dealt out from the same individual. This person came close to destroying the young girl that was Dreama, and Dovey sorely (righfully) is angered by this. This is the shared secret that neither Dovey or Jo realize they have in common. While this was not resolved in the story, it did not matter in the grand scheme. Life is messy and there isn't always the perfect resolution, or a reckoning, so to speak, to what goes on, right?

But, it is the baby, Promise, who seems to deliver them from their dark pasts, and his name suits his role perfectly. Because of him, there is the promise of a brighter future.
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DonnaEverhart | 8 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Jun 21, 2022 |
This book was featured in the AJC one Sunday and was compared to the bestseller The Help. Growing up in the south I have always been interested in race relations and especially those involving Black maids and this book portrayed an interesting aspect of that relationship.

I enjoyed this story and although it sometimes felt like it was dragging at times, overall it was one of those stories that kept you on the edge of your seat and leaves you with more questions than answers ( at least for me it did).

The Queen of Palmyra tells the story of a 9 year old girl in the hot Mississippi summer of 1963. Things are changing all around and as some of this change starts to appear in Millwood, Mississippi things take a drastic turn. The story highlights all of this from 9 year old Florence's eyes ( with a few flashbacks) and takes an interesting looking at race relations and the relationship between families and the hired help.
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sunshine608 | 13 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Feb 2, 2021 |
I enjoyed a previous novel by this author and wanted to read some of her earlier books. This was the first one that I read and it was really good - not sure how I missed it when it was published. It's a real page turner with some interesting characters. I thought that the middle of it dragged and that it could have been shorter but overall it was great and I plan to continue to read her older books.

On Palm Sunday, April 5, 1936, a massive funnel cloud flashing a giant fireball and roaring like a runaway train careened into the thriving cotton-mill town of Tupelo, Mississippi, killing more than 200 people, not counting an unknown number of black citizens, one-third of Tupelo’s population, who were not included in the official casualty figures. This novel is about Dovey, a black laundress, and her family in the aftermath of this massive tornado. After the tornado struck, Dovey woke up in Gum Pond. She almost drowned until she was able to pull herself out of the water. When she finally located her house, it was totally demolished. She sets out on quest to find her husband, granddaughter and Promise - her granddaughters baby. What she encounters is horrific - the town is totally destroyed, there are bodies everywhere and people wandering around in shock. What was really horrible is that despite all of the pain and suffering going on, the white townspeople still showed their racial prejudice in everything they said and did. The black members of the community got less care and concern than the white people and there wasn't even a list of the black causalities. Dovey's goal to find her family is filled with danger and pain because she is suffering from numerous injuries. She tries to ignore her injuries because she knows how important it is to find her family.

This was an interesting well written book about how people coped with the aftermath of a disaster. I enjoyed the book and won't soon forget Dovey and her search for her family.
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susan0316 | 8 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Jan 22, 2021 |

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Tilastot

Teokset
10
Also by
1
Jäseniä
551
Suosituimmuussija
#45,290
Arvio (tähdet)
3.9
Kirja-arvosteluja
29
ISBN:t
36

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