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Abstract
Set in Alabama in 1949, A Dress for Dorothy Dandridge is a narrative that chronicles the journey of Jessie Thomas, a twenty-six-year-old black seamstress, as she cares for a dying grandmother, two small children, a husband, a should-be ex-husband, and two best friends. Jessie's entire life is a maze of caring for and caring about, a life that is constructed by the people who need her---until one day, she has a dream about Dorothy Dandridge (a beautiful, glorious woman), who is essentially a body, a voice, and ultimately a dress. As a result, Jessie---who has never wanted, suddenly wants, so she makes a dress deserving of the woman who inspired it and capable of liberating the woman who dreamed it. Through the many threads that comprise the fabric of Jessie's life the novel explores the idea of identity as it relates to a cohesiveness of self that the character experiences when she is faithful to her own inner truths and values in spite of the familial or societal demands. It is through Jessie's physical engagement with the main metaphor throughout the book that she begins to first deconstruct her inherited identity then construct an identity that is of her own making.
