The Queen of Palmyra posted by Lauren Weiland

The Queen of Palmyra, by Minrose Gwin, tells the controversial story of Florence Forrest who is growing up in the south during the Civil Rights Movement. Minrose Gwin begins the story with, “I need you to understand how ordinary it all was,” which sets the honest, distinguished and true tone for the rest of the novel. Florence is an eleven-year-old girl and the narrator of the story. She seeks her father's attention and mother's love. Her father goes on many late night adventures, and Florence looks forward to these times because she is always assigned the duty of retrieving her father's box from the bottom of the basement stairs. Once her dad would leave for the night, her mother would tell her to go get in the car and they would go on an adventure of their own; to the bootlegger's house. Florence's mother was never quite with it because of her alcohol abuse issues. When Florence turns twelve, her mother is temporarily out of her life, after trying to commit suicide by parking at a railroad crossing. Florence's father takes advantage of this as a chance to show Florence the highly secret items kept in the box. Florence opens it to find a bat, bible, and black cape and mask. Florence hopes her father will allow her to borrow it for Halloween. This is when the Dramatic Irony begins. The reader is now made aware of the fact that her dad is a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and his nightly adventure are nothing less than massacres. Unfortunately, Florence is to young to understand what is going on. Throughout the rest of the novel, Florence faces many situations that constitute for a man vs. society conflict. For instance, Florence spends every evening at her Mimi's house, who then immediately sends her to Zenie, her black maid's house in the back yard. Florence becomes very close to Zenie and her niece Eva and realizes very quickly how much they hate being called colored, yet she has been raised with the idea it is her right as a white person to call any black person that. Florence is put through a lot of physical, mental, and sexual abuse from her father and members of his 'club' throughout the novel, and Minrose Gwin does not hold back in telling it how it was. As Florence grows older she realizes more and more maybe her father is not the superhero she imagined, and also has a realization of how poorly blacks were being treated. The Queen of Palmyra is definitely a hard book to get through, and will make you upset on many occasions throughout. As stated before, “I need you to understand how ordinary it all was,” is the initial sentence in the book, and by the end you know it holds true. It was not complete chaos all the time, Florence saw her dad as wonderful human being for the majority of her Pre-adult years. I would suggest this book to anyone who enjoys learning about this era, and can handle a very detailed, in depth, honest novel. Minrose Gwin did an impeccable job with this novel.