Welcome to Roxboro, North Carolina, a crossroads hamlet where, in 1920, tobacco and bootleg liquor thrive and most folks seem to agree that women are meant to know their place. But four extraordinary, determined young ladies are about to leave their boot prints on this small Southern town, and nothing will ever be the same.
Bertie, a hello-girl for Wheeler’s Telephone Company and the only woman in Person County to own a Model T, is staunch in her support for female suffrage, and has an opinion on everything, including church, Negro rights, matrimony, and men, and considers every one of those opinions worth listening to.
Bertie’s cousin Guerine, perpetually engaged to her former desk-mate from their school days, believes there’s no problem that can’t be solved by either a fashionable dinner party or something ordered from the back of a women’s magazine. Her attempts at cooking and entertaining are legendary.
Doodle is the quiet farmer’s daughter who can usually be found in men’s overalls, feeding her handmade dumplings to her prize-winning geese. When her father passes away, leaving her with a shocking secret, Doodle discovers there’s more to life than livestock . . . maybe even love.
Newcomer Ina is a pampered debutante, a Virginia blue blood who seems far too glamorous to be teaching in Person County’s one-room schoolhouse, especially swathed in a cloud of tragedy: Her beloved husband dropped dead on their New York honeymoon.
When these four very different ladies come together in friendship, facing struggles and earning triumphs, they realize that they can achieve almost anything. These delightful, conspicuous women will steal your heart and inspire your soul.
On Account of Conspicuous Women is a wonderful tale of human nature, Southern gentility, and great social change in a small town. With her brilliant debut novel, Dawn Shamp has captured perfectly a slice of 1920s life that is still relevant today, and she has crafted a marvelous world you won’t want to leave.
