Publisher Description
A "beautifully written" Pulitzer Prize–winning novel about prejudice and a distinguished family's secrets in the American South (The Atlantic Monthly).
Seven generations of the Howland family have lived in the Alabama plantation home built by an ancestor who fought for Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. Over the course of a century, the Howlands accumulated a fortune, fought for secession, and helped rebuild the South, establishing themselves as one of the most respected families in the state. But that history means little to Abigail Howland.
The inheritor of the Howland manse, Abigail hides the long-buried secret of her grandfather's thirty-year relationship with his African American mistress. Her fortunes reverse when her family's mixed-race heritage comes to light and her community—locked in the prejudices of the 1960s—turns its back on her. Faced with such deep-seated racism, Abigail is pushed to defend her family at all costs.
A "novel of real magnitude," The Keepers of the House is an unforgettable story of family, tradition, and racial injustice set against the richly drawn backdrop of the American South (Kirkus Reviews).
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About Shirley Ann Grau
Shirley Ann Grau, born in New Orleans in 1929, has spent most of her adult life in the Creole region. Not surprisingly, the powerful works of this major American author often reflect the isolated bayous and their French-speaking residents, but her fiction is equally at home with the fiercely independent people of small Southern towns and the sophisticated upper class of New Orleans. Her critically acclaimed first book, The Black Prince and Other Stories, established her as a talented new writer, and her fifth, The Keepers of the House, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1965.
About Allyson Johnson
Allyson Johnson is an actress and singer who began performing at age twelve as coanchor of Bubble Gum Digest, for which she won an Emmy. After earning a degree in psychology from Brown University, she moved to New York where she became a social worker before shifting to a career in television and radio. Johnson has recorded countless commercials, promos, audiobooks, narrations, and animation series.