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. ( )

To be sure, it has its faults. Gwin uses more similes per chapter than most authors use in an entire book. Certainly Florence seems to be fairly clueless for a child that has grown up in Mississippi and sometimes seems to be older than her years. But the story is wonderful and worth overlooking the flaws. ( )

To be sure, it has its faults. Gwin uses more similes per chapter than most authors use in an entire book. Certainly Florence seems to be fairly clueless for a child that has grown up in Mississippi and sometimes seems to be older than her years. But the story is wonderful and worth overlooking the flaws. ( )

THE QUEEN OF PALMYRA is a story of troubled times in the deep south, told from the perspective of a child. Set in the summer of 1963, Florence has just returned to her home town of Millville after a year spent on the road, following her father around the country while he tried - and failed - to find a steady job. Her father, Win, has had trouble getting his life in order: he starts menial job after menial job but can't keep any of them for long because of his violent temper. Win's sense of entitlement and short fuse make him fail as a blue-collar worker - but those very same qualities are assets in his night-time persona: Nighthawk for the Ku Klux Klan. Win is a white supremacist, the official "enforcer" for the Klan, and it's his job to keep uppity blacks in place with threats, savage beatings, and cold-blooded murder where necessary.

Florence is shielded from her father's worst behavior by her mother, Martha. Martha is the daughter of a liberal, well-educated Southern family and she married Win for all the wrong reasons. The two share strong sexual chemistry (Florence recalls hearing her mother refer, angrily, to the lure of Win's "Great Big You Know What"), and Win was born with a birth defect - a club foot - stirring Martha's pity. Pity and sexual chemistry convinced Martha to marry Win when she was just out of high school, against the advice of her family and friends. Martha soon discovers her mistake - she learns about Win's involvement in the Ku Klux Klan, Win is physically abusive, and because of his inability to hold down a job Martha must shoulder the burden of keeping the family financially afloat. She copes with these issues by feeding information about the Klan's activities to members of the black community who can organize defensive measures, by starting a cake-making business, and by drinking to excess.

By the time that THE QUEEN OF PALMYRA begins, when Florence is nine years old, her parents marriage is in dire straits. Martha's drinking is out of control, and she's unable to perform the basics of mothering: keeping Florence fed, clothed, clean, and protected. Florence sees the way that other parents treat their children, suffocating them with loving attention and treating them like "Precious Cargo", and she sharply feels her own neglect. Her unhappiness shows up in the form of frequent illness, especially a constant, deep tiredness.

Martha decides that the best thing she can do for Florence is to place her in the care of her old nanny, Zenie. Zenie, a smart, no-nonsense black woman will give Florence some much-needed mothering, and also counteract the poisonous, racist ideas that Win feeds Florence in the form of bedtime stories. Zenie, named for Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, is tough and brusque but she's also a fundamentally good woman in a warm, stable marriage. By spending time at her grandparents' home during the day, where Zenie works as a maid, and at Zenie's home at night, Florence is exposed to happy, stable marriages and forward-thinking ideas about racial equality.

Several important events take place during the summer of 1963. Zenie's niece Eva Green arrives in town, with a college education and a deep desire to work for racial equality in Millville. She starts selling insurance policies door to door, working for a company that is owned by blacks and treats blacks fairly - but Win has also found work as an insurance salesman, going door to door in the black neighborhoods and letting everyone know that if they don't buy his policies, and keep paying for them, he'll make sure that they get a visit from the Nighthawk and his "headache stick." Eva, by trying to cut into Win's territory, incurs his wrath - and suffers for it. Win tracks her down in broad daylight and beats her unconscious, possibly raping her as well (it's not clear how far his sexual violation of Eva goes). This is the last straw for Martha, who tries to commit suicide and lands herself in a mental institution where she's given electrical shock therapy at Win's insistence. As a consequence, Florence comes face to face with her father's dark side, which she has never seen before.

With Martha out of the picture, Win expresses his racism to Florence in a way he never could before - using foul language, taking her to Klan meetings and even having a friend sew her up a little Klan costume to wear, but also physically abusing her for minor disobedience. For example, when Martha is in the hospital Florence
tries to bake the cakes that Martha had committed to make for her business, but she starts a fire in the kitchen instead. As punishment, Win badly burns Florence's arms on a candle flame - to show her just how dangerous fire can be. It also becomes clear that Win's devotion to his daughter is not entirely fatherly - there is a disturbing sexual undertone to his behavior towards Florence which spikes when Martha disappears. Gwin describes Win climbing into bed with his daughter at night, both of them nearly naked in the hot Mississippi summer, while Win tells his daughter fairy tales and rubs her belly. Florence is both comforted and disturbed by his touch, and aware of his occasional erections.

It's clear from the beginning that Win's failures as a provider for his family drive his enthusiasm for the Klan. So when his family starts to fall apart - when he realizes his wife would rather die than stay with him, when it looks like his daughter looks down on his involvement in the Klan, the one place where he gets the respect he
thinks he deserves - Win takes it out on the black community as the Nighthawk. Of course, this only makes the situation worse: Florence sees the devastation of the black community from within and what little stability she has in her life crumbles. She's slow to realize the truth, but eventually Florence understands exactly how evil her father is. The realization is devastating, but luckily Florence is able to flee Millville with her grandmother, escaping her father's influence for good. Others aren't so lucky: Eva Green is murdered on the eve of Florence's departure.

THE QUEEN OF PALMYRA tells a very dark story, but the way it is told keeps the reading experience from becoming too depressing. As a child, Florence was buffered from the whole truth and so the reader, too, sees the adult goings on in the novel only obliquely. There's a lot of day-to-day detail and local color. Florence comments on her own storytelling, observing at one point: "By now I've read enough stories in my life to know I'm not telling this one right. All this business about Daddy's box and Mama's icings and Zenie's green leaf
curtains and my speckled butterbeans. Too much clutter." The narrator is too modest - Gwin's detours give the story added power, rather than detracting from its impact. But the structure allows the reader to feel along with Florence how painful her memories are, and how hard it is to return to them.

The writing is very strong, with a distinctive, folksy southern voice ("When you see something you don't believe, something you know can't be true, then forgetting can shove remembering out the door and if remembering ever does return home like that poor long-lost prodigal boy, forgetting wants to kill him." or "Shake Rag people planted themsleves on their front porches, babies blooming like dark red roses from the laps of great-grandmothers, who held them with swollen fingers in a death grip"). The characters are vividly drawn, complex, coming to life over the course of the novel and settling strongly into the imagination - they stick with you after you've finished the book.

I enjoyed THE QUEEN OF PALMYRA. The setting, characters, and language combine seamlessly into a fully realized novel whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If this story appeals, THE QUEEN OF PALMYRA is definitely worth considering. ( )

This is not what I expected, and frankly the story resembles Summer in the South too much. The story is another of those Southern stories with eccentric characters and depressing times. After chapters and pages of this drivel, I gave up. ( )