It is 1959 in Hope Mills, North Carolina. Cotton is giving way to synthetic fiber; mill work is declining; race relations are volatile; the nearby military base is expanding; girls and women too often are trapped economically and socially; men are losing the assurance of secure work and dominion over their families. Through the eyes of Tollie and Lily, two high-school chums who are each other's salvation, Constance Pierce chronicles a time of enormous change and difficulty and ends on a note of endurance and triumph. Novelist Lee Smith comments: "An exceptionally engaging first novel. . . . Writing always with a clean lyricism, a fine sense of humor, and an infallible feel for time and place, Constance Pierce makes us care deeply about all the characters, rich and poor, old and young, crazy and sane, who inhabit this perfectly rendered mill town."