The Good women at the heart of A Good Family by Teddy Jones are bold, witty, and most importantly, resilient. This delightful novel is set in that indelibly chaotic time called 1920’s America when women struggled to persevere. Battling misogyny and sexism by men, mostly, but also by other women and society, Imogene and Sue Ellen Good, cousins by choice, forge their own versions of family in the oil boomtown of Borger, Texas. Guided by the journals of an ancestor from the 1880s, these good women seek honest work and meaningful lives, tangling with shady and mysterious male characters at their boarding house and cooking absolutely delicious meals. By the way, Jones’s description of how
Imogene and Sue Ellen make stick-to-your-ribs chicken fried steak is mouthwatering! And she has created a by-gone era devoid of nostalgia but rich with exquisite historical details and complicated characters. This riveting women’s novel isn’t all about toil and trouble—it’s full of joy and laugh out loud moments, along with tantalizing glimpses of romance. I couldn’t help but root for both Good
women and couldn’t put down this novel until the very end.” –Helena Rho, author of Stone Angels
Readers new to Teddy Jones’s fiction as well as longtime fans will be captivated by her latest novel, A Family of Good Women, a crowd-pleasing tale of several generations of strong, independent women—and a few kind men. Set in a dangerous Texas Panhandle boomtown in 1929, the novel is a true page-turner, proving Jones to be just as adept and admirable as her feisty and memorable shero Imogene Good.—Robin Lippincott,
Author, Blue Territory: A Meditation on the Life and Art of Joan Mitchell and In the Meantime
What is the true meaning of family? Imogene Good finds herself wrestling with this question when, still grieving her mother’s death, she abandons a promising teaching career to open a boarding house in the near-lawless oil boomtown of Borger, Texas. Alone.
The business thrives, love arrives in the form of a mysterious Texas Ranger, and Imogene takes in a stray dog and a runaway cousin from the Good family farm in East Texas. But months later, as fatigue, mounting threats, and violence against her business threaten to overwhelm her, she
finds refuge in the contents of a trunk she carted to town after her mother’s death.
In it, Imogene finds secrets about the women who raised her that change her life and her understanding of family. Can the Good women build a new life from the ashes of hardship on the inhospitable plains of the 1920s Texas Panhandle?
Inspired by historical events, A Family of Good Women is a compelling tale of inner strength, the bonds of family, and the power of the human spirit.