Only Piece of Furniture
The only piece of furniture in this house turns out to be the matriarch of the family, Bethana, a beleaguered and omnipresent woman who holds her family together and dominates their lives. Set against the sparse landscape of Texas and Louisiana, coated with the dust of poverty, and infused with an obdurate faith, Glancy's novel belongs in the canon of Southern women's fiction that includes works by such authors asLee SmithandKaye Gibbons.