An absorbing, old-fashioned tale about how, as in Flannery O'Connor's stories, 'Grace changes a person....And change is painful.'" -- The Washington Post The celebrated novel from the author of Dear Edward. Forced by illness to leave behind a successful life as a writer in New York, Flannery O'Connor has returned to her family farm in Milledgeville, Georgia. She desires a quiet, solitary existence, but her mother, Regina, drags Flannery to the wedding of a family friend.The embodiment of southern womanhood, Cookie Himmel is Flannery's antithesis and has returned from her time in Manhattan to marry rich fiancé, Melvin Whiteson. Lona Waters, a dutiful housewife, is hired by Cookie to help create a perfect home, but when she is given an opportunity to remember what it feels like to be truly alive, and she seizes it with both hands.In the course of one tragic afternoon, these characters must take a good hard look at the choices they have made and face up to O'Connor's observation that "the truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."