This House of Women

Rambling, old-fashioned and thoroughly endearing, Paul Scott Malone's first novel, This House of Women, follows the adventures of Hannah Hayward, who arrives in the small east Texas town of Karankawa in 1942, pregnant and nearly penniless. A warmhearted older couple and a crippled aspiring writer are her first friends, and on the basis of their affection, she goes on to make a decent life for herself. Over the next 40 years, she becomes the linchpin of an unorthodox family, eventually moving across the state to a hill country ranch. Short story writer Malone (In an Arid Land) tackles the novel form with warmth and integrity.