In this thought-provoking and powerful novel, a young girl must grow up too soon as she watches her family disintegrate around her.

A cry in the night awakens ten-year-old Amy Beale and alerts her to the difficulties in her parents' marriage. Earlier that steamy evening in July 1940, her mother, Arleatha, witnessed yet another of her husband's infidelities at one of his notorious "rent parties." Amy overhears her sobbing in the middle of the night, as Jack Beale begs for another chance. Arleatha agrees to give him one year. From her bed, a terrified Amy tries to strike a bargain with...

Through the reminiscences of Kate Hamilton, an African American woman living in rural Furlong County, Virginia, The Grass Widow reveals the effects of deceit and adultery on the marriage of a young, impressionable girl.

It is August, 1988, and on her porch Kate, now a sensitive, attractive woman of fifty-eight, contemplates events during her forty-year marriage to her philandering husband, Elmore, who five years earlier had a stroke when he discovered a letter indicating that Kate had been unfaithful. Feeling that she is partly to blame for his stroke, she has dutifully cared for him...

Through the reminiscences of Kate Hamilton, an African American woman living in rural Furlong County, Virginia, The Grass Widow reveals the effects of deceit and adultery on the marriage of a young, impressionable girl.

It is August, 1988, and on her porch Kate, now a sensitive, attractive woman of fifty-eight, contemplates events during her forty-year marriage to her philandering husband, Elmore, who five years earlier had a stroke when he discovered a letter indicating that Kate had been unfaithful. Feeling that she is partly to blame for his stroke, she has dutifully cared for him...