Looking For Salvation at the Dairy Queen-Susan Gregg Gilmore

Looking For Salvation at the Dairy Queen
Susan Gregg Gilmore
Crown, Feb 2008, $23.00
ISBN: 9780307395016

In the early 1970s in Ringgold, Georgia, teenager Catherine Grace Cline dreams of leaving town soon for Atlanta. The daughter of a widower Baptist preacher is bored with having no life outside of the church even with a caring boyfriend Hank. Catherine Grace’s highlight each week is finding salvation at the local Dairy Queen one slow lick at a time to savor her Dilly Bar.

After graduating from high school in 1972, finally with the help of family friend Mrs. Gloria Jean Graves, Catherine Grace takes the Greyhound up I-75 to Atlanta. In the beginning of her stay in the big city, she diligently writes letters to her younger sister Martha Ann who consistently replies; both girls miss each other as their mom died when Catherine Grace was six years old. However before she could really taste Atlanta, four succinct worded telegram from Martha Ann brings Catherine Grace home, but with a new perspective on life in a small town.

A fully developed lead protagonist and a strong secondary cast especially daddy and Martha Ann turn LOOKING FOR SALVATION AT THE DAIRY QUEEN into a profound historical regional tale. The characters provide the audience deep insight into life in both a Georgia small town and Nixon era Atlanta. Anyone who understands what Dairy Queen has meant to the south or just wants to know will appreciate this engaging tale of young woman ready to take on the world, but while doing so learns simple truths about the flexibility of humans to seek dreams, but not fearing to modify or replace them.

Harriet Klausner