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2012
NORTH CAROLINA L ITE R A R Y RE V IE W O N L INE PHOTOGRAPH BY ALAN WESTMORELAND; COURTESY OF NC STATE ARCHIVES
their journey. Ultimately, too, he is revealed to be a corrupt businessman who is cutting corners on the materials he uses in his concrete business so he can filter money into the White Businessmen’s Association of Charlotte to prevent blacks from registering to vote. (This cutting of corners results in a death and a suicide. On top of the incidents in Claxton, these events in the final chapters of the novel will feel overdone and rushed to many readers.) Additionally, while Paula is presented as having some sympathy for Mary and as admiring of Jubie’s most audacious act, there’s little evidence by the close of the book that Jubie’s mother has yet experienced any real growth in racial matters. The novel’s ending, in fact, may prove problematic for some readers. Here Mayhew comes close again to presenting Mary as the black “savior” figure. Readers will have to make up their own minds on this issue as they finish the book; however, it is safe to say that some readers may tire of another novel or film that allows the white protagonist to gain wisdom and experience through the conduit of a black character.
Still, Mayhew is not quite so pat. It is also possible to read the ending of the novel more pessimistically, or – for the time – realistically. One may see in The Dry Grass of August Mayhew’s refusal to end the story “neatly” or to shy away from the violence of the period. Nor does she shy away from the fact that despite the Claxton sheriff’s letter to Paula explaining the details of what happened to Mary, it is likely that little will be done to prosecute those involved. The sheriff remarks, “Although the outcome should be forgone, there are no guarantees” (265; italics in original). Indeed. Nor is Mayhew’s scene of Jubie returning to Charlotte after the incidents in Claxton and visiting with Mary’s church family a “let’s all join our black and white hands together and sing ‘Kum Ba Yah’” picture of racial harmony. The scene is marked by a cool reception of Jubie on the part of Mary’s two children. Moreover, everyone in the church seems alarmed when Leesum shows up, squeezes in beside Jubie, and holds her hand during the service – even the kindly Mrs. Coley who had earlier met Jubie. Certainly their reactions may be driven by fear for Leesum’s safety (the novel is set just a year before Emmett Till is murdered in real life), but there’s also a general sense of discomfort with the closeness between these two adolescents, a young black male and a young white female. Thus, again, all is not neatly wrapped up at the novel’s close. This is especially true for the final chapter of the book. It is perhaps meant to be optimistic, with Paula and the children moving into
ABOVE Anna Jean Mayhew after receiving the 2011 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction
for her first novel, The Dry Grass of August, Raleigh, NC, 18 Nov. 2011
number 21
a small rental house and Paula explaining that the rotting leaves covering the grass in the backyard can easily be raked into the creek, “no big deal.” One might be tempted to read this image as a metaphor, that this family will emerge from under the decay of the world around them, particularly the rottenness of hatred and bigotry, like the grass will emerge from under the decaying leaves. Perhaps they will. As Jubie closes the story, she says, “Lately Mama had answers for everything” (279). However, one wonders what those answers might be. Can any of Paula’s answers counteract what happens to Mary Constance Culpepper Luther? Will Jubie be forever changed by these events? Will this experience lead Jubie to work to overturn a system that is still so entrenched? One wonders if a line from Stell toward the novel’s end may be very telling. Jubie is asking her older sister about visiting Mary’s family, and Stell says she’s not sure Mary’s children would want them there. “But she was our friend,” protests Jubie. “We paid her to be,” replies Stell (211). It seems remiss not to make at least a brief comparison between The Dry Grass of August and Kathryn Stockett’s The Help (2009), given their similar themes and, to a degree, plots, and their publication just two years apart. Few readers will be unaware of Stockett’s runaway bestseller, set in 1962 Jackson, MS, about a young, privileged, mildly rebellious white woman who manages to persuade the maids of many of her friends and family to tell their stories anonymously, which, in the