Idella: Marjorie Rawlings' Perfect Maid
This unique memoir tells the story of one black woman's experience as maid, cook, and confidante to noted writer Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Set in North Florida in the 1940s, Idella deals openly and frankly with the ambiguous relationship between a white woman and her black retainer. Fascinating details of Rawlings's kindnesses (sometimes patronizing) as well as her drunken rages and depressions are interspersed with Parker's observations on race relations in the pre-Civil Rights Movement South. Although "ahead of her time" in her defense of Idella as "the perfect maid," Rawlings still viewed blacks as inferiors and never bridged the racial divide that separated her and Idella. This book provides an important and neglected perspective. Recommended for all major libraries.- Anthony O. Edmonds, Ball State Univ., Muncie, Ind.Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.