Stars: 4
Review by: MandyApgar
Mayfield uses aliases in this all throughout and with fairly good reason - on the surface the book seems pretty basic but the themes explored at times aren't really so. The third of four kids born to a WWII vet funeral director and his long suffering wife, she grew up in a very small Bible belt town in the early 60s. While her father was deciding how to keep on helpers such as the shroud lady or how to handle a rivalry with the other town funeral home run by a long standing family, the town itself was undergoing a series of changes brought about by the civil rights movement. Devoted to the family's African American housekeeper, Belle, and attracted to black men, Mayfield never understood why there was an issue. But after sleeping with her first boyfriend and the news getting out she found herself increasingly threatened and in trouble for her views. And, at the same time, she was fending off blows from her mentally ill older sister - a severe bipolar case with abusive tendencies, their parents never wanted to admit she needed help and so she was allowed to beat her siblings unchecked. Sadly, her father died young, and the house they were given by a family friend taken from them by the lady's greedy relatives, but Mayfield herself got out early to begin a new life in London.
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