McCullers's last novel is set in a small Georgia town in the 1950s, as the old racial order begins to be challenged. Its characters include a pharmacist who learns he has a serious illness, a retired judge who clings to the past, his grandson, and a young Black man whose life becomes tied to theirs. The novel looks at mortality, prejudice and the struggle to find meaning when time is short. It is sombre in tone but humane, and it shows the author writing directly about social change in the South.