Ladies of the Draw-In Room: Ten Stories Weaving a Common Thread

Cotton mills and the villages they spawned are rapidly disappearing from the landscape of the South. Like a time capsule, Ladies of the Draw-In Room captures the lives and times of ten women living in the mill town of Concord, N.C., in 1953. Each story takes place during the same hot July weekend and follows a different woman who works in the Draw-In Room of the mill. Working in vegetable gardens, canning tomatoes, attending Sunday preaching, shopping at Belk’s and going to Carolina Beach are activities planned by the characters. As the weekend unfolds, unexpected events take control of their lives. A wife discovers her husband has been unfaithful, a widow has a heart attack, a daughter shoots her abusive father, and a mother is forced to tell her son about his dead father’s past. By the time the weekend is over each woman is able to show her remarkable ability to adapt to change.