Most Popular Books by Kaye Gibbons

Margaret struggles toward adulthood in a world torn apart by the Second World War and complicated by her strong-willed mother, Sophia, and grandmother, Charlie Kate, in a story about three generations of passionate, willful Southern women

A "vivid, unsentimental, powerful" portrait of a Southern marriage by the New York Times–bestselling author of Ellen Foster ( Publishers Weekly). "She hasn''t been dead four months and I''ve already eaten to the bottom of the deep freeze. I even ate the green peas. Used to I wouldn''t turn my hand over for green peas . . ." Ruby Stokes has died too young and left her husband, Blinking Jack, behind. With alternating entries from each of them, A Virtuous Woman recounts the tale of their years together in an "exquisitely realised piece of writing" (Elizabeth Buchan, The Mail on Sunday). From their very different backgrounds—Ruby a daughter of wealth, Jack a penniless tenant farmer—to their relationships with their landlord and his family, and the strength they drew from each other in the face of hardship, this story of a marriage is "full of fantastically gritty metaphors . . . A book that will change your dreams" ( The Observer). "Gibbons again flawlessly reproduces the humor and idiom of rural eastern North Carolina." — Library Journal

In the verdant backwoods of North Carolina, in a sad and singular era, the Birches are unique among women of their time-living gloriously rich it decidedly offbeat lives in a private world ahandoned by men. And though misery often heats a path to their door, headstrong Sophia and her y, brilliant daughter Margaret possess charms to ward off loneliness and despair-thanks to the uncompromising strength, uncommon wisdom, and muscular love of a remarkable matriarch and self-taught healer who calls herself Charlie Kate. In Charms for the Easy Life, Kaye Gibbons has created a luminous, truthtelling novel that gives life to her most passionate and toughminded women yet.

An eleven-year-old girl must rely on wit and courage to survive in this award-winning debut novel, an Oprah Book Club selection. "Filled with lively humor, compassion, and intimacy. . . . Ellen Foster may be the most trustworthy character in recent fiction." —Alice Hoffman, The New York Times Book Review "When I was little, I would think of ways to kill my daddy." With that opening sentence we enter the childhood world of one of the most appealing young heroines in contemporary fiction. Her courage, her humor, and her wisdom are unforgettable as she tells her own story with stunning honesty and insight. This powerful novel, first published in 1987, has become an American classic. Winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters''s Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and the Ernest Hemingway Foundation''s Citation for Fiction. "The life in this novel, the honesty of thought and eye and feeling and word!" —Eudora Welty "The story of a redoubtable girl who overcomes adversity with humor, spunk, and determination. . . . She is a terrific kid, and Ellen Foster is a terrific book." —Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World "[A] beautifully written story, compelling in its innocence, is sweet, funny, and sad." — Library Journal

The story of Emma Tate, a privileged Southern woman, who finds herself caught in the Civil War, an event which influenced and changed her life.

A sequel to the now-classic "Ellen Foster" picks up Ellen''s life five years later, at 15, with a new mother, a home, a mind too large for her surroundings, and a brave and compassionate integrity.

In her darkest yet most redeeming novel, Gibbons scorches us with a Þrestorm of despair-and then resurrects love and hope from its very ashes. Autumn 1918: Rumors of peace are spreading across America, but spreading even faster are the first cases of Spanish influenza, whispering of the epidemic to come. Maureen Ross, well past a safe childbearing age, is experiencing a difficult pregnancy. Her husband, Troop-cold and careless of her condition-is an emotional cripple who has battered her spirit throughout their marriage. As Maureen''s time grows near, she becomes convinced she will die in childbirth. Into this loveless ménage arrives Mary Oliver, Troop''s niece. The sheltered child of a well-to-do, freethinking Washington family, Mary comes to help Maureen in the last weeks of her confinement. Horrified by Troop''s bullying, she soon discovers that her true duty is to protect her aunt. As the influenza spreads and the death toll grows, Troop''s spiteful behaviors worsen. Tormenting his wife, taunting her for her "low birth," hiding her mother''s letters, Troop terrorizes the household. But when Mary fights back, he begins to go over the edge, and Maureen rallies, releasing a stunning thunderstorm of confrontation and, ultimately, finding spiritual renewal. The Boston Globe hailed On the Occasion of My Last Afternoonas "another gift from Kaye Gibbons to the literature celebrating strong women of every age and era." Much the same can be said of Divining Women.

A young girl in a small town named Bend of the River Road struggles to understand her mentally disturbed mother and preserve their relationship

The hopes and dreams of four generations of Southern women are revealed in the stories they pass down from grandmother, to mother, to daughter, to granddaughter.

Au soir de sa vie, " en son dernier après-midi ", Emma Garnet Tate se penche sur son passé. Elle a grandi sur une riche plantation de Virginie, entourée de cinq frères et sueurs, d''une mère aimante et profondément bonne, de Clarice, la vieille esclave noire adorée, mais surtout d''un père arriviste, tyrannique et raciste. Le jour où il tue un " nègre " sous ses yeux, Emma prend la fuite. Elle épouse Quincy, un chirurgien yankee, humaniste et défenseur de la cause des Noirs, auprès duquel elle trouve enfin la paix et fonde un foyer. Mais la guerre de Sécession éclate. Le couple choisit alors de se consacrer aux blessés, qu''ils soigneront jour et nuit, jusqu''à l''épuisement. Suivront les deuils, la solitude, les jours heureux aussi, où Emma puisera toujours la force de continuer à combattre contre toutes les injustices.

Jack Ernest Stokes, ouvrier de ferme un peu rustre, et Ruby, jeune fille de bonne famille, ont vingt ans d''écart et apparemment rien en commun. Pourtant, ils se sont rencontrés et unis pour surmonter leurs démons. Mais Ruby va mourir. Le roman s''ouvre sur les préparatifs de la jeune femme : trois mois de plats tout préparés à mettre au congélateur et destinés à son époux Jack après sa mort. Dans ce récit à deux voix, l''un et l''autre racontent successivement les épisodes tragi-comiques de leur vie quotidienne avec un sens du grotesque tout à fait hors du commun. Et c''est tout le vieux Sud rural des États-Unis qui resurgit. " Au terme d''un récit chaleureux, le veuvage n''est jamais attristant par la grâce d''un style dont le rythme joyeux court à travers toute une société campagnarde, réchauffée par l''éclat posthume de Ruby, tant il est vrai que le Sud est un territoire de femmes, et qu''une femme vertueuse a plusieurs vies. "