The novel, which deals with issues of race, class and gender, was originally serialized in 1932 in the magazine Pictorial Review under the title "Sugar House".

[1] Set in the 1910s at "the Shore" of New Jersey, the novel explores issues of race and class in early 20th-century United States.

Bea Chipley is a quiet, mousy Atlantic City teenage girl whose mother dies, leaving her to keep house for her father (Mr. Chipley) and Benjamin Pullman, a boarder who peddles ketchup and relish on the boardwalk and sells maple syrup door-to-door.

Frank Flake, a young man intent on entering medical school, becomes Bea's business manager.

Jessie, by now in her late teens, comes home for a visit just as Bea is planning on selling the "B. Pullman" chain and marrying Flake.

Hurst stated that her novel was written because of a "consciousness" that came from how African-American soldiers had fought for their country in World War I even though they were discriminated against at home.

[3] The novel Imitation of Life continues to provoke controversy, as some read it as heavy-handed stereotyping, while others see it as a more subtle and subversive satire of and commentary on race, sex, and class in early 20th-century America.

Molly Hiro contends the "premature removal of Peola" from the novel version of the story "not only allows her successfully to escape the “blackness” she has resisted, but also keeps the character at a distance from readers, thereby rendering her incapable of representing a legible message about racial authenticity.