Homestead — Sheila Ortiz-Taylor

From the author of the legendary classic novel Faultline comes this unforgettable depiction of three generations of women in a vivid, authentic, and luminous story of their lives and times.

Set in Florida and Georgia during a profoundly transitional period of American life, Homestead opens in the 1920s with the birth of Joyce, daughter to Mary Beth, who has dutifully married the widower of her dead sister. Bound to a man whose judgments threaten disaster if not calamity, denied a love she dares not contemplate, Mary Beth lends her strength and resourcefulness toward carrying her family through the life-changing times of prohibition and the Great Depression. In a world fully controlled by men, Mary Beth, and the servant-class women around her, allow new and different choices for Joyce and her future. Yet Joyce too is constrained, by society's expectations, and even more powerfully, her own sense of duty and obligation. And then Amelia is born...

How these women endure, innovate, and support one another to overcome the circumstances of their lives is the deeply affecting, flesh and blood story in Homestead, a lyrically beautiful homage to the strength and resiliency of women.