"I need you to understand how ordinary it all was."

The year is 1963 and the place is small town Mississippi.  Eleven-year-old Florence Irene Forrest has an anything but ordinary life as the daughter of a mentally unstable mother and a father with dark secrets.  The first we realize that her father's night meetings are anything but benign occurs when immediately after he leaves, Florence's mother takes her on a trip to the bootlegger - not the white bootlegger, but the black bootlegger - and gives this man a warning to "get everybody inside, and the boys in the woods."

As Florence becomes more aware of the conditions of her life, the story grows ever darker.  The book is a look back at her life from the viewpoint of her adult life, and her dawning recognition of what she witnessed that year.  The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin reminded me of The Help but with a much harsher view of race relations in that violent time.