It is 1913, shortly before the start of the First World War, and Annalaura is alone again. Her gambling, womanizing husband has left the plot they sharecrop in rural Tennessee--why or for how long she does not know. Without food or money and with her future tied to the fate of the season's tobacco crop, Annalaura struggles to raise her four children. When help comes in the form of an amorous landowner, who is she to turn it--and him--away?

In this remarkable first novel, as bracingly o