Mary’s answer to “Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?” > Likes and Comments

Mary Volmer. i am a fellow Squaw Valley Community member. Congratulations on your Reliance, Illinois. I love those titles that can go one way or the other. My own work is set in the mid-west, where I am from. What a compliment that a Californian would find the mid-west interesting, but I read in your interview excerpited that the parallels to your own time compelled you to follow those women. Not only are we in the same geo region, we share the era. Ten years after the Civil War was a doozy of an era, so topsy-turnvy when one could see how much work winning the war was going to be. As an African American, I am drawn to the Jim Crow era and as you say, 'the state of a systematic oppression that continues in place of slavery today."
Sounds like you read Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow. Me too. I felt like I live in the belly of the beast.
Much luck to you on your work. Keep going. it's interesting.