Kaye Gibbons: Tough Women in a Rough South

This chapter discusses Kaye Gibbons's work, which portrays wise and hardworking women whose gumption improves the lot of the suffering lower class. Born Bertha Kaye Batts on May 5, 1960, Kaye Gibbons grew up in a Nash County, North Carolina, farming community named Bend of the River. When Gibbons was ten, her mother committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills; her father drank himself to death soon thereafter. Orphaned at age twelve, Gibbons lived briefly with an aunt and then in a foster home, before moving in with her married older brother. Gibbons learned early to love the written word, a key to her survival. Her first novel, Ellen Foster, was published in 1987, and its sequel, The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster, in 2006. Gibbons's second novel, A Virtuous Woman (1989), features a character whose inner conflict highlights the tension between the Rough South and the working-class South her family represents. Gibbons's other novels include A Cure for Dreams (1991) and Charms for the Easy Life (1993).