A big and clamorous family, the Fairchilds live on a plantation in the Mississippi delta during the 1920s. They are in the midst of planning their daughter's wedding when they are visited by a nine-year-old relative, Laura McRaven, whose mother has just died. In this 1946 novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Optimist's Daughter, drama leads to drama, revelation to revelation, resulting in a tale that is "nothing short of wonderful" (The New Yorker).