From the bestselling, award-winning author of Flora and Evensong comes the story of two remarkable women and the complex friendship between them that spans decades.

When the dean of Lovegood Junior College for Girls decides to pair Feron Hood with Merry Jellicoe as roommates in 1958, she has no way of knowing the far-reaching consequences of the match. Feron, who has narrowly escaped from a dark past, instantly takes to Merry and her composed personality. Surrounded by the traditions and four-story Doric columns of Lovegood, the girls--and their friendship--begin to thrive. But underneath their fierce friendship is a stronger, stranger bond, one comprised of secrets, rivalry, and influence--with neither of them able to predict that Merry is about to lose everything she grew up taking for granted, and that their time together will be cut short.

Ten years later, Feron and Merry haven't spoken since college. Life has led them into vastly different worlds. But, as Feron says, once someone is inside your “reference aura,” she stays there forever. And when each woman finds herself in need of the other's essence, that spark--that remarkable affinity, unbroken by time--between them is reignited, and their lives begin to shift as a result.

Luminous and masterfully crafted, Old Lovegood Girls is the story of a powerful friendship between talented writers, two college friends who have formed a bond that takes them through decades of a fast-changing world, finding and losing and finding again the one friendship that defines them.

Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2017 (Top 10)

Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Books 2017

Indie Next Summer 2018 Pick For Reading Groups

The haunting tale of a desolate cottage, and the hair-thin junction between this life and the next, from bestselling National Book Award finalist Gail Godwin.

After his mother's death, eleven-year-old Marcus is sent to live on a small South Carolina island with his great aunt, a reclusive painter with a haunted past. Aunt Charlotte, otherwise a woman of few words, points out a ruined cottage, telling Marcus she had visited it regularly after she'd moved there thirty years ago because it matched the ruin of her own life. Eventually she was inspired to take up painting so she could capture its utter desolation.

The islanders call it "Grief Cottage," because a boy and his parents disappeared from it during a hurricane fifty years before. Their bodies were never found and the cottage has stood empty ever since. During his lonely hours while Aunt Charlotte is in her studio painting and keeping her demons at bay, Marcus visits the cottage daily, building up his courage by coming ever closer, even after the ghost of the boy who died seems to reveal himself. Full of curiosity and open to the unfamiliar and uncanny given the recent upending of his life, he courts the ghost boy, never certain whether the ghost is friendly or follows some sinister agenda.

Grief Cottage is the best sort of ghost story, but it is far more than that--an investigation of grief, remorse, and the memories that haunt us. The power and beauty of this artful novel wash over the reader like the waves on a South Carolina beach.

Building on its successful 27 Views series, Eno Publishers showcases the literary community of Asheville, North Carolina, in 27 Views of Asheville: A Southern Mountain Town in Prose & Poetry. Twenty-seven writers contribute poetry, essays, short stories, and book excerpts that focus on the fabled mountain town, offering readers a broad and varied picture of life in Asheville, past and present, as well as a sense of the town's literary breadth. Contributing authors include Sharyn McCrumb, Gail Godwin, Ron Rash, Pamela Duncan, Nan Chase, Allan Wolf, Dale Neal, Charles Frazier, and Robert Morgan. A fictionalized account of a battle between citizens and developers in the 1980s; reflections on the legacy of Thomas Wolfe; a look at Asheville's literary renaissance; and a poem by Robert Morgan recalling milkshakes at the Asheville Dairy Bar are just a few of the topics covered in this literary montage. The cover illustration is by Daniel Wallace, author of the novel Big Fish.

The novels of Gail Godwin are contemporary classics -- evocative, powerfully affecting, beautifully crafted fiction alive with endearing, unforgettable characters. Her critically acclaimed work has placed her among the ranks of Eudora Welty, Pat Conroy, and Carson McCullers, firmly establishing Godwin as a Southern literary novelist for the ages.

In A Southern Famiy, the celebrated author of A Mother and Two Daughters, The Finishing School, and Father Melancholy's Daughter once again explores the shattering dynamics of parents' relationships with their children and themselves. It is the story of the Quick family and the reunion that leads to tragedy -- a masterful tale of anger and pain, of love and hatred, and of the understanding that ultimately heals.

The novels of Gail Godwin are contemporary classics--evocative, powerfully affecting, beautifully crafted fiction alive with endearing, unforgettable characters. Her critically acclaimed work has placed her among the ranks of Eudora Welty, Pat Conroy, and Carson McCullers, firmly establishing Godwin as a Southern literary novelist for the ages.

Father Melancholy's Daughter, is widely recognized as one of the author's most poignant and accomplished novels -- a bittersweet and ultimately transcendent story of a young girl's devotion to her father, the rector of a small Virginia church, and of the hope, dreams, and love that sustain them both in the wake of the betrayal and tragedy that diminished their family.

What is the heart? We know it as not only the beating thing in our chests that sustains life, but as the wellspring of all faith, hope, and love. In this remarkable book, critically acclaimed author Gail Godwin takes us on a breathtaking journey that spans the history of human civilization, combining myth, art and religion to understand how humans have conceived of the heart through time. From the first valentine to the first stethoscope, from the Ancient Egyptians to the Buddha, from the heart of darkness to heart-to-heart talks, Godwin weaves her own stories of heartbreak and hope through it all.

Inspired by the richest of lore, Godwin ultimately arrives at what every culture must discover anew: we cannot let the head alone rule our lives. In this colorful history of the organ of life itself, she discovers a template for a more heart-filled life.

"A big, entertaining novel...Rich in character and place and humanity...Gail Godwin is a wonderful writer."
THE BOSTON GLOBE
At the death of Leonard Strickland, beloved Southern gentleman, husband and father, his family is faced with the unknown. Nell always relied on the husband of her youth for security and friendship. Fiercely independent Cate and perfect Lydia have spent their lives vying for the love and approval their father generously gave. And as each woman begins to view her life, her past, and the possibilities of the future with new eyes, each belatedly discovers that life and death are impossible to plan, and that the past that has kept them apart can bring them closer to themselves and one another....

"REAL ARTISTRY...A FINELY CRAFTED AND ABSORBING NOVEL."
--Los Angeles Times
Dane is an American magazine journalist, and John, a British psychotherapist. He says he knows everything about her, how she thinks, what she wants from life. Under the force of his certainty, Dane marries John and takes up the care of his silent three-year-old son, Robin.
They go on vacation to Majorca to try to become a family, but ten months into their marriage Dane finds herself growing more and more distant from John, impatient with his endless analysis of their relationship, and repulsed by his clumsy attempts at understanding. As ever, Robin's silence hangs constantly between them, a symbol of pure anger and hate. As the two weeks stretch on forever, Dane grows closer to a decision she can't quite make, and Robin sits silently in the middle, a reminder to her of all she cannot control....
"This is so skillfully in the classical tradition, and at the same time so accurate on the old Adam and Eve battle. I thought the British psychiatrist an only too convincing male monster."
--John Fowles
"A tense, tight, erotic book, complete with highly dramatic scenes, in an unembarrassed, uncluttered manner."
--The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Original in its situation, astute in its insight, and quite impeccably styled."
--Kirkus Reviews

"POWERFUL. . .GODWIN IS BRILLIANT. . .DEFTLY PLOTTED AND IMAGINED. . . [It] deepened my long-cherished belief about certain forms of art: that in exploring extremities of human behavior, in forcing us to wade through real or metaphorical blood, such art saves us from these experiences and is cathartic in the best sense of the term."
--Joyce Carol Oates
The Washington Post
Francesca married her husband Cameron, an ambitious Los Angeles district attorney, because he asked. Beautiful and pampered, she has never worked and has never wanted to. She lives only to appreciate the finer things and to be adored. But after four years of marriage, she finds herself unable to move, to dress in the morning, or to take the elevator outside.
Lately, she finds her days drifting by in a haze. She'd like to leave Cameron, but the effort seems too great. Instead, she visits her mother, once her closest confidante, now indifferent and distant. As Francesca prays for rescue, change makes a surprise appearance, and suddenly she is faced with the choice between an awkward life and a slow, comfortable death. . . .
"Deceptively subtle: it would be easy to skim right over all the deep things the author is saying and read her book as a well-written surface story of a beautiful woman who makes an abortive bid for freedom....I have been crying out for contemporary woman's new consciousness to express or define itself in a good novel....Here it is: Glass People by Gail Godwin."
--Anatole Broyard
The New York Times