The Dry Grass of August
Infused with the intensity of a changing time, here is a story of hope and heartbreak, of love and courage, of a journey from wounded to indomitable. In August 1954, Jubie Watts, a white teenager, leaves Charlotte, NC, with her family and their black maid for a Florida vacation.
Jubie notices the anti-integration signs they pass, and feels racial tension build as they journey further south. But she cannot predict the shocking turn their trip will take. In the wake of tragedy, Jubie confronts her parents' failings, decides where her own convictions lie, and makes a leap to independence.
Praise for The Dry Grass of August
BookPage: "...Anna Jean Mayhew’s debut novel deserves all the early praise it’s getting...(her) narrative is beyond contestation and well-deserving of a wide readership." read more
Bookreporter.com: "The angst and ennui of a young girl on the brink of her teenage years recall classics like Carson McCullers's THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING..." read more
Publishers Weekly: "A girl comes of age in the tumultuous 1950s South in Mayhew's strong debut..." read more
Booklist: "Through immediate first-person narration, this first novel gets the prejudice and cruelty in daily life exactly right..." read more
Lee Smith: "The Dry Grass of August is a perfectly realized novel..." read more
FINALIST!
2012 SIBA Book Award
(Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance)
Read a literary academic review of The Dry Geass of August — click here
Southern Voices 2012 — 20th Anniversary Conference
February 16-19 — Hoover (AL) Public Library
Winner of the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for 2011
Delta Magazine, Cleveland (MS), has named Dry Grass as one of their top 5 books of 2011
Hub City (SC) hosts the 12th annual Writing in Place conference on the campus of Wofford College July 13-15, 2012 — Anna Jean Mayhew is on the faculty
Book Trailer for The Dry Grass of August, with short reading
