Obedience: a novel

by David Ward-Nanney

The tough-as-nails Margaret Griffin rescues the family lumber business in 1920s Tennessee using the native wits that a finishing school veneer cannot suppress. She emerges as the fierce protector of her family, ruthlessly capable. It is Margaret's granddaughters--there would be no men born to these women--who must sort through three generations of ancestral baggage to discover how to make peace with the past. Stockard Griffin, the eldest of the granddaughters and the least likely to do more than drift in her warm pool of a trust fund, finds that it is a strange and particular obedience that allows her to reconcile the family's past with what lies ahead.

282 pages, Paperback

First published August 11, 2009

About the author

David Ward-Nanney is the author of three novels: Obedience, Powder Dreams, and Blueberry. He received his B.A. (Ancient Greek) from Emory University.