by Kent Haruf
First published 1984
Eighty-year-old Edith Goodnough lies in a hospital bed, charged with murder. The clues: a slit sack of chicken feed, a chained dog in the cold. As her neighbor Sanders Roscoe shares what he knows, Edith's harrowing past emerges - a childhood of brutal farm work, a mother's death, a father's rage that leaves him dependent on his children. Edith sacrificed her own happiness to uphold her family's unyielding rural code, but one final act may finally grant her freedom.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-drama, sacrifice
Setting: Colorado
Period: 20th-century
246 pages · Hardcover · Holt, Rinehart and Winston
Content warnings: abuse, child-abuse