Show Me a Kindness
Nancy Brandon
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About the Book
Show Me a Kindness is set during the Great Depression. While the book’s protagonist, Marthanne Hendrix, is originally from Savannah, Marthanne discovers that she has moved to rural Vidalia, with no memory of how she got there. Inexplicably, she can’t remember certain days, she finds unrecognizable clothes hanging in her closet, and some of her neighbors seem to call her Oma. Marthanne quickly realizes that she is haunted by memories of another life—and another self. With gossip running rampant in Vidalia, Marthanne and Oma confront their greatest fear: commitment to an asylum in Milledgeville. Only one new friend knows their secret—a domestic worker named Comfort, who herself is dealing with the stigma of being African American in the Jim Crow South.
About the Author
Nancy Brandon was perhaps destined to be a writer. Although she was born in Atlanta, after only a few days, she and her parents moved south to Hawkinsville, where her mother edited and wrote columns for the
Hawkinsville Dispatch and News. Nancy worked as a paper girl to support her fledgling writing career, and she was supported and inspired by both her mother and grandmother, children’s author Sydney K. Davis. After earning her undergraduate and graduate degrees, Nancy taught college composition in Savannah and published four college writing textbooks. Since then, she has turned her attention back to writing fiction. Her first novel,
Dunaway’s Crossing, earned her a spot as a finalist for the Georgia Author of the Year Award.
Show Me a Kindness is her second novel.
