Why a Booktrail?
1960s: The story of a Lebanese woman who’s just moved to a small Georgia town
The Day’s Heat
What you need to know before your trail
Set in the early sixties against the backdrop of impending national integration, the novel follows Lee James, a dark-skinned, Catholic, Lebanese girl who comes to a small south Georgia town. Lee has already seen the partiality shown her younger, fairer sister Ray, and experienced prejudice even in the Catholic church that she dutifully attends with her two daughters, who both have their father’s blonde hair and blue eyes. She must confront the prejudices of her husband’s family and the community toward her nationality and religion, at a time when there were no birth control pills, no internet, no cell phones, and when a woman’s place was in the home. Lee struggles with her own growth as a wife, mother, and an individual in an unfavourable place and time.
Travel Guide
Travel BookTrail style to the fictional Georgian town of Strickland
Strickland might be fictional but the events and experiences of the characters within feel very real and raw.
The Day’s Heat” takes its title from the new testament quote, “we who have borne the burden of the day’s heat,”
Strickland is your typical 1960’s southern town. There’s racial prejudice, an unexpected pregnancy and a mother’s increasingly claustrophobic sense of the local community.
There are many changes happening in Strickland. Racial issues, a breakdown and change of societal norms and the changing role of the church in people’s lives. Georgia at the time was very religious and that dictated the social and other norms of the time. There is a problem with the class system and the many barriers and obstacles that this results in.
This is one woman’s navigation of a time and place alien to her and so many others.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: The Day’s Heat
Destination: Georgia, “Strickland” Author/guide: Roberta George Departure Time: 1960s
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