The importance of family relationships—how members influence and sustain each other—is a common theme in Bridgers's work, and it is introduced in her firt novel, Home Before Dark.

Stella Willis, the young protagonist, is growing up in a family of migrant farm workers. When they eventually return to the "homeplace" in North Carolina, they are welcomed and provided for by the younger Willis brother who remained there to work the family farm.

Stella is thrilled with their little tenant house and vows never to leave. As she 3759 becomes more independent, she forms relationships outside her family, but the bonds remain strong. She mourns her mother's death, and, when her father remarries, she comes to realize that it is her family, not a house, that is important.