One way to facilitate discussions about the contentious subject of race is to use 'The Priscilla Trilogy' as a conversation piece; the series dives head-on into the subject.Set in the early 1980s, "Priscilla Engaging in the Game of Politics," (Book #1 in the series), portrays the coming-of-age of an African American young woman, strongly bound to her father--a Methodist minister and consummate politician about who she has conflicted feelings. Shortly after she begins her career as an assistant professor of political science at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, her father mysteriously asks her to relocate closer to home (Prendergast, New York). She contacts an Ohio state senator for whom she performed an internship during her graduate studies at The Ohio State University and with whom she had an affair. The senator offers her a job as his legislative aide. She accepts. The story is off and running.As it so happens, Priscilla's father has taught her, by example, how to deal effectively with racism, and politics, too. And although she is African/British/Choctaw on her father's side and African/Irish/Cherokee on her mother's side, she is regarded as black in America.Like a primer, "Priscilla" takes a deep look at the forces which made her what she is: her family roots in highly-segregated Mississippi, her upbringing in upstate New York where subtle racism leaves its scars despite her loving father's protection, a campus date rape that leaves her with unhealed wounds and, a scintillating season as a high-powered legislative aide in a life-altering political scandal."Priscilla" provides a wide range of powerful, historically accurate and apt subject matter for conversations about race, politics, and much more."Priscilla" is the debut for political science professor-turned-fiction writer M. J. Simms-Maddox.
