Idella: Marjorie Rawlings’ Perfect Maid

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A warmhearted and insightful tribute to the author of Cross Creek and The Yearling, and it’s the story of Parker herself, a tough-minded Floridian devoted to her family. A charming book. –ALA Booklist

Idella Parker’s recollections of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings are as intimate and frank as their ten years together. This long-awaited memoir, by the black woman who was cook, housekeeper, and comfort to the famous author from 1940 to 1950, tells two stories–one of their spirited friendship, the other of race relations in rural Florida in the days before integration.

By turns kind and generous, moody and depressed, the Pulitzer Prize winning author emerges as a woman of contrasts–someone with few friends and many visitors … who seldom smiled. Idella’s own life is part of this memoir, too, as she describes her courtship and marriage, her family lineage back to Nat Turner, and what it was life to grow up in a segregated society.