The Bean Trees

Taylor is independent and assertive, believing that she does not need and will never need a man, and fiercely avoids marriage and children until, upon finally leaving Pittman County, she is given an abandoned Indian child. Lou Ann is a bundle of neuroses and fears, considering every single unlikely calamity that may befall her or her son because of a dream that she considered prophetic that foretold that her son would not live to see the year two thousand. In contrast to the confident Taylor, who becomes her roommate, Lou Ann is perpetually worried about what others will think about her, and fears saying the wrong thing and offending friends who may abandon her.