Author: Fannie Hurst
Publisher: Perma M4124
Year: 1959 Print: 2
Cover Price: $0.35
Condition: Very Good. Light wear
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 284
40313055E

A bestseller in 1933, and subsequently adapted into two beloved and controversial films, Imitation of Life has played a vital role in ongoing conversations about race, femininity, and the American Dream. Bea Pullman, a white single mother, and her African American maid, Delilah Johnston, also a single mother, rear their daughters together and become business partners. Combining Bea’s business savvy with Delilah’s irresistible southern recipes, they build an Aunt Jemima-like waffle business and an international restaurant empire. Yet their public success brings them little happiness. Bea is torn between her responsibilities as a businesswoman and those of a mother; Delilah is devastated when her light-skinned daughter, Peola, moves away to pass as white. Imitation of Lifestruck a chord in the 1930s, and it continues to resonate powerfully today.