In a beautifully conceived and gracefully executed first novel about one woman's life in the American South at the turn of the 20th century, poet Zuber (Oriflamb) imagines a community that is still following patterns and behaviors established 100 years before. Central to her portrait are the relationships between Anna Maud Stockton Bayley, her adulterous, twice-married husband, John, and their offspring. Forced into marriage after John seduces her, Anna makes the best of it, sewing, gardening and keeping house in the small town of Faith, N.C. Still, she dreams of music, singing, travel and love. But single-minded John, who is avid to increase his land, children and stock, is less interested in his young wife's desires than his own personal gain. Leading up to the tempestuous marriage, the plot moves at a slow waltz, with Zuber lovingly establishing even minor characters. But the pace picks up once Zuber expresses the frustration that clouds Anna's life: her longing for knowledge and romance and her conviction that her children should receive an education. Researched with an eye to domestic detail, the narrative offers a realistic portrait of a woman's daily tasks in the late 19th and early 20th century, when there were "bedticks to empty, scrub and restuff with new straw twice a year" and little else to which a married woman could aspire. Tragically, the one instance of romance in Anna's life is her undoing. The lyric cadences of Zuber's prose and her tender evocation of the landscape and atmosphere of her native region have much to do with the emotional richness of her touching account of one woman's inner awakening. (Mar.)
