The Other RoomPosted in Books, Louisiana, Media Archive, Novels, United States on 2019-06-07 01:46Z by Steven |
The Other Room
Crown Publishers
1947
274 pages
ISBN 13: 9780000100184
Worth Tuttle Hedden (1896-1985)
Winner of the Southern Authors Award
A Southern White Girl Gets The Shock Of Her Life
The iron grillwork of the gate stood between them…..and so did years of tradition and social custom. It was a barrier, built by hate and fear, between one color and another. He might have crossed that line, and lived on her side–but he was too proud to pass for white.
This prize-winning novel is about a young woman who unknowingly signs up to teach classes at an all-black college in New Orleans in 1920. It is one of the best—and earliest—views of breaking the color line as well as a touching love story of a man and woman of different races.
In the evening she was on a train, rushing towards New Orleans. Her first job waited for her; she was counting off the miles to adventure, romance, and independence. In the morning, shamed and horrified, she was fighting the necessity to quit, to go home to a scornful family and admit failure.
Nina Latham was a southern girl, trained in a rigid code of black and white. She wanted to get away from home, but when she signed for her new job she didn’t know she would be working with Negroes, eating with them, living among them. And certainly she didn’t know that she would meet handsome young Leon who could have passed for white—but wouldn’t.