Nine Women by Shirley Ann Grau

Grau’s insightful and mesmerizing collection of stories, about nine Southern women unified by their search for happiness in the face of overwhelming odds

The nine namesake women of this collection come from all levels of New Orleans society, from the daughters of servants to affluent ladies. All, however, struggle with grief, longing, and hope. In “Widows Walk,” for instance, Myra Rowland tries to make sense of life after the death of her husband. “In the Beginning” depicts a daughter trying to understand her own mother’s determination to raise her up from abject poverty. “Ending,” meanwhile, tells of a couple whose union dissolves just as their daughter marries. In many cases, these protagonists are struggling to accept the sudden loss of life and love in a land teeming with both.

Grau is one of America’s most masterful storytellers, a writer with an eye for the teeming diversity of life in the Deep South.