The novel, following chronological order, embraces three generations of a family. Lantry comes to Florida from outside, establishes himself without ever really becoming a part of the land or the people, and dies fairly early in the novel, leaving to his descendants his name and his nameless fear. His daughter Piety and her son Lant are the two major figures in the book, which encompasses Piety's entire life but ends with Lant still a young man.

The story takes place entirely in or very near the Big Scrub; character, plot and theme are all intimately bound up with the setting. The setting is shown in considerable, very accurate detail and is so unusual as to seem attractively exotic.

Rawlings took great pains to have her characters act and speak like the real inhabitants of the Big Scrub; as mentioned above, she lived with the prototypes of her main...