Mammy, the faithful slave in “Gone With the Wind,” may finally get her due — and a proper name.
More than 75 years after the publication of the epic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Georgia’s Margaret Mitchell, a prequel with Mammy at its center, “Ruth’s Journey,” is set for release in October, the publisher said Wednesday.
News of the third sequel was greeted with interest in Atlanta, the birthplace of Margaret Mitchell and the center of a “Gone With the Wind” industry. Visitors to the region can choose from several museums that tell the story of Rhett and Scarlett and Mitchell, and can stop into the Margaret Mitchell House in Midtown, where Mitchell wrote most of the book.
At Marietta’s Gone With the Wind Museum, director Connie Sutherland said she has “mixed feelings” about another addition to the O’Hara saga. She keeps copies of the second sequel, “Rhett Butler’s People,” on sale at the gift shop, but is not partial to the other post-“Gone With the Wind” novel, “Scarlett,” and does not offer it.
“I’m a purist. I think Margaret Mitchell meant for us all to use our own devices to determine what happened after Rhett walks out the door,” Sutherland said.
Sutherland is particularly nervous about expanding on the story of Mammy. “She’s my favorite character in the film,” Sutherland said. “She’s the glue that held the O’Hara family together. … When somebody’s writing about her, it has to be right.”
The Mitchell estate authorized “Ruth’s Journey,” which was written by Donald McCaig, the author of the 2007 sequel, “Rhett Butler’s People.” Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, acquired the rights to the new book.
The Mitchell estate also blessed the choice of McCaig, who is perhaps best known for “Jacob’s Ladder,” his award-winning Civil War novel.
McCaig suggested a prequel that focused on the character he called Ruth, one of the most beloved figures in “Gone With the Wind”: sharp-tongued, loving, sensitive and deeply moral. Mammy’s story begins in 1804, when Ruth is brought from her birthplace, the French colony of Saint-Domingue that is now known as Haiti, to Savannah.
“It was Donald’s idea, instead of doing another sequel, to go backwards,” said Peter Borland, the editorial director of Atria. “He felt that Mammy was such a fascinating and crucial character to the book. He wanted to flesh out a story of her own.”
Mitchell was criticized for the one-dimensional nature of many African-American characters in the book, particularly Mammy, who cared for fiery Southern belle Scarlett O’Hara.
Borland said the new book addresses those criticisms head-on.
“What’s really remarkable about what Donald has done is that it’s a book that respects and honors its source material, but it also provides a necessary correction to what is one of the more troubling aspects of the book, which is how the black characters are portrayed,” Borland said.
In an email, McCaig, 73, who lives on a farm in Virginia, said that he was drawn to write about Ruth because there are “three major characters in ‘Gone With the Wind,’ but we only think about two of them.”
“Scarlett and Rhett are familiars, but when it comes to the third, we don’t know where she was born, if she was ever married, if she ever had children,” he said.
“Indeed, we don’t even know her name,” he said.
The publisher said it would print an ambitious 250,000 copies in hardcover.
Sarah Brown, a buyer with Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Ariz., said that “Rhett Butler’s People” was not a strong seller but that “maybe people who love ‘Gone With the Wind’ will want to get more of it.”
She added, “I think it will get a lot of press, but I don’t think it will be a huge blockbuster.”
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