New York: Putnam, (2009) dj. Hardcover first edition - The author's first novel, which focuses on the lives of black women who work as servants in a small Mississippi town in 1962 at the dawn of the Civil Rights era. A surprise bestseller, which went quickly into many later printings, this was also the basis of the movie of the same name. 451 pp. ISBN: 978-0399155345.