This story is about a relationship between thirty-something Dorrie, a hairdresser and a black single mother of two, and an eighty-nine year old Isabelle, an elderly white woman in Texas. Isabelle convinces Dorrie to embark on a car road trip to Kentucky. Dorrie is driving Isabelle to a funeral.
It's through Dorrie and Isabelle's narratives that the story really comes to life. Miss Isabelle begins to tell her story when she was a teenager in 1939 and fell in love with their maid's son, Robert. The two are committed to each other but there many things conspiring against them. As Miss Isabelle shares her story it is easy to see what a remarkable relationship she and Robert shared, yet Dorrie knows from seeing the pictures in Isabelle's house that everyone in Isabelle's life was white. What happened to Robert and the love they shared? The flashbacks to the 1930s and 1940s helps the reader gain more insight in what life was like back then for both Blacks and Whites in Kentucky and how even though Blacks had rights they still were far from being treated respectfully as their white peers were. By Julie Kibler
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