Gail Godwin became a nationally prominent literary figure when her fifth novel, A Mother and Two Daughters (1982), became a best-seller. Critics have often focused on Godwin's portrayal of female characters, often a protagonist torn between the demands of convention and expectation and the longings of her strong, independent spirit. Godwin's work is also often analyzed for those elements that connect it to the tradition of Southern fiction. Predominant among these elements is a concern with family and those ghosts of the past that inhabit present lives, but racial issues are also significant in several works. Because Godwin writes from a strong historical sense of the novel in English, her work provides avenues of exploration for critics and readers interested in intertextuality. Finally, matters of the spirit and faith have become even more central in the later novels.

Although Godwin's reputation rests so strongly on her novels that she...