Entrenched on the same land since the early 1800s, the Howlands have, for seven generations, been pillars of their southern community. Extraordinary family lore has been passed down to Abigail Howland, but not all of it. When shocking facts come to light about her late grandfather William's relationship with Margaret Carmichael, a black housekeeper, the community is outraged, and quickly gathers to vent its fury on Abigail. Alone in the house the...

In 1911, Turner Buckminster hates his new home of Phippsburg, Maine, but things improve when he meets Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl from a poor, nearby island community founded by former slaves that the town fathers--and Turner's--want to change into a tourist spot.

"Novel set in the south during the Great Depression that takes an entirely fresh view on big American themes-- race, heredity, inequality, shame-- set in a time of financial crisis and racialized violence"--

"Nameless, Kentucky, in 1969 is a hardscrabble community where jobs are few and poverty is a simple fact--just like the hot Appalachian breeze or the pests that can wipe out a tobacco field in days. RubyLyn Bishop is luckier than some. Her God-fearing uncle, Gunnar, has a short fuse and high expectations, but he's given her a good home ever since she was orphaned at the age of five. Yet now, a month shy of her sixteenth birthday, RubyLyn itches for...

On a scorching day in August 1954, thirteen-year-old Jubie Watts leaves Charlotte, North Carolina, with her family for a Florida vacation. Crammed into the Packard along with Jubie are her three siblings, her mother, and the family’s black maid, Mary Luther. For as long as Jubie can remember, Mary has been there—cooking, cleaning, compensating for her father’s rages and her mother’s benign neglect, and loving Jubie unconditionally. Bright...

When twelve-year-old Frederick "Red" Porter's father dies in 1972, his mother wants to sell their automobile repair shop and move her two sons back to Ohio, but Red is desperate to stop the sale even if it means unearthing some dark family secrets in a Virginia rife with racial tensions.

When her father goes to fight in World War II, Elizabeth goes with her mother and sister to her grandfather's house where she learns to face up to the always puzzling and often cruel realities of the adult world.

"Ladee Hubbard's voice is a welcome original." --Mary Gaitskill The acclaimed author of The Talented Ribkins deconstructs painful African American stereotypes and offers a fresh and searing critique on race, class, privilege, ambition, exploitation, and the seeds of rage in America in this intricately woven and masterfully executed historical novel, set early in the twentieth century that centers around the black servants of a down-on-its heels upper-class...

In an era of bootlegged whiskey and muddled race relations, faith and medicine are failing the patients at the Waverly Hills tuberculosis sanatorium. Dr. Wolfgang Pike believes music could play a pivotal role in his patients' care--but his boss's disapproval, rising racial tensions, and past memories tear at him.

In the aftermath of a devastating tornado that rips through the town of Tupelo, Mississippi, at the height of the Great Depression, two women worlds apart-one black, one white; one a great-grandmother, the other a teenager-fight for their families' survival.