Gail Godwin is the author of eleven novels—three of which were National Book Award nominees—two collections of short stories, and one book of nonfiction; she is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. But in the late summer of 1961, she was facing uncertainty on almost every front: she was twenty-four years old, newly divorced (the marriage had lasted five months), and recently fired from her job as a reporter with the Miami Herald (the kindly editor who gave her the news wrote to her, “I hope you can use this experience somewhere, but I’m afraid you won’t do it successfully until you look facts in the face and at the same time quit expecting to get to the moon in one day”).
