‘The Dry Grass of August” (Kensington; $15) is a book that is difficult to put down. Anna Jean Mayhew has written a multilevel novel about complex adult relationships seen through the eyes of 13-year-old Jubie Watts in the waning days of segregation in the South.

Mayhew doesn’t preach; she successfully uses a novelist’s device – show, don’t tell – to present not only the issue of smoldering race relations in a period of transition but also family relationships ranging from benign neglect to drunken rages. In a series of flashbacks, internal monologues and probing anecdotes, she brings to life a well-rounded cast of characters. At the center of this beautifully written work are Jubie, the second daughter of William and Paula Watts, and Mary, the Watts family’s maid who is the only selfless and loving adult in Jubie’s life.

As the story begins, Jubie’s father stays home in Charlotte, while Jubie, her siblings, her mother and Mary take off in the family Packard to visit maternal relatives in Pensacola, Fla. That trip builds the way for a tragedy to come.

What seems natural to the family in their treatment of Mary might seem insensitive to the reader, but it is historically valid. Paula Watts’ sister, Jubie’s Aunt Rita, brings a travel basket for the vacationing travelers: “It’s packed with dishes, glasses, utensils. The ones in the paper bag are for Mary.” She lowered her voice. “There’s talk of the Klan in Georgia.” An admonition by William Watts to his wife – “Don’t let Mary ride up front” – elicits a tart reply – “I’d never do such a fool thing.”

Indignities aimed at Mary because of her race punctuate the journey farther south. Jubie sees an unpleasant reality that she barely knew existed. Anecdote after anecdote illustrating the ingrained racial prejudice opens Jubie’s eyes and tear at her heart. Her mother’s problem finding motels that would accommodate a party with a black person happens time after time. It has never occurred to Jubie what problems a black would have while traveling: where to find a room, where to get a meal, where to find an outhouse since they could not use indoor toilets and where to bathe.

En route to Pawleys Island, S.C., after leaving Pensacola, the group, with Stell, Jubie’s 16-year-old sister at the wheel, stops in Claxton, Ga., to shop for fruitcakes. While no one is seriously hurt in a car crash there, the Packard sustains enough damage to keep them in Claxton until replacement parts can be shipped in.

With the delay, deeply religious Stell talks Jubie and a willing Mary into attending a tent revival being led by a black preacher beyond the edge of town. Starting back toward the motel, Stell suggests to Jubie and Mary that they take a shortcut which leads through a residential part of town. Jubie agrees with some trepidation; she remembers a sign she has seen: “Negroes Observe Curfew! Whites Only After Sundown!”

A harrowing scene ensues. Street lights are shot out, someone snarls, “What you doing walking in a white neighborhood after dark?”; a car slows down then speeds away with the shouted threat, “We gonna get you, girl.”

“They are after me. Call the police,” Mary says as thugs drag her toward a car, then speeds off.

It is several days before Mary’s beaten body is found. When Jubie’s father arrives, he buys a simple coffin for Mary and arranges for her body to be sent by train to Charlotte. Jubie and her mother want to go back to Charlotte for Mary’s funeral. Her father says no: “We’re not driving five hundred miles – from here to Charlotte to Pawleys – for an hour long funeral. As soon as we’re packed, we’ll go on to the beach.”

Out of love for Mary, in rebellion against her father and with a new self-awareness, Jubie sneaks out in the wee small hours, takes the Packard and, despite having no driver’s license, drives home from Claxton in time for the funeral, the only member of the family to attend.

There are subplots and well-defined characters in the book that make this more than a non-stereotypical work on racial prejudice. Each anecdote fits smoothly into a pattern of society that is part of the history of the mid-20th century South.

At the back of the book is list of questions as a guide for discussion groups.

Anna Jean Mayhew is a native of Charlotte and has never lived outside the state, although she often travels in Europe. She has been writer-in-residence at Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, and served on the board of the N.C. Writers’ Network. This is her first novel.