A big-hearted coming-of-age debut set in civil rights-era New Orleans—a novel of Southern eccentricity and secrets When Ibby Bell’s father dies unexpectedly in the summer of 1964, her mother unceremoniously deposits Ibby with her eccentric grandmother Fannie and throws in her father’s urn for good measure. Fannie’s New Orleans house is like no place Ibby has ever been—and Fannie, who has a tendency to end up in the local asylum—is like no one she has ever met. Fortunately, Fannie’s black cook, Queenie, and her smart-mouthed daughter, Dollbaby, take it upon themselves to initiate Ibby into the ways of the South, both its grand traditions and its darkest secrets. For Fannie’s own family history is fraught with tragedy, hidden behind the closed rooms in her ornate Uptown mansion. It will take Ibby’s arrival to begin to unlock the mysteries there. And it will take Queenie and Dollbaby’s hard-won wisdom to show Ibby that family can sometimes be found in the least expected places. For fans of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt and The Help, Dollbaby brings to life the charm and unrest of 1960s New Orleans through the eyes of a young girl learning to understand race for the first time. By turns uplifting and funny, poignant and full of verve, Dollbaby is a novel readers will take to their hearts.
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“In 1964, Liberty Alice Bell (known
an Ibby) is dumped on the doorstep of her grandmother’s New Orleans mansion,
where she’s mostly raised by the black housekeeper, Queenie. With wonderful
accents and piquant personalities, narrator January Lavoy revels in the black
characters—Queenie; her husband; her daughter, Dollbaby; and her grandchild.
There’s little of the region in the other characters, but Lavoy keeps the pace
lively and engaging. As Ibby matures from age twelve to a young woman, Lavoy
voices her transformation and her understated involvement in the Civil Rights
events of the era. The tone of self-discovery is maintained as Ibby learns
surprising things about her birth family.”
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AudioFile