Laura Chappell McAllan

Laura is a thirty-one year old spinster when Henry McAllan comes into her life and changes everything. Henry, a college educated man who works with the Army Corps of Engineers, marries Laura and gives her two daughters and a good life in Memphis. However, after World War II draws to a close, Henry buys a farm in the Mississippi Delta, tearing Laura from the only world she has ever known and dumping her into the rural farm country to make a home in a rustic house that has no electricity or running water.

Laura feels as though she has lost her identity with the move to the farm. A miscarriage adds to Laura sense of having disappeared, as though her husband and children do not see her anymore. However, when Henry's younger brother, Jamie, comes to stay at the farm, Laura suddenly comes alive under his...