The simmering prejudices of a small southern town are painfully manifested in Janice Daugharty's third and most impressive novel to date. Chanell, a sassy, independent beautician and proprietor of Cornerville, Georgia's most popular salon-cum-meeting place, suddenly finds her lifelong friends and customers avoiding her, then shunning her. When the reason for the social lynching comes to light and the power of racial hatred rears its ugly head Chanell discovers that the unspoken ways of her small southern town are alive and well.

At first devastated by her friend's icy behavior and threatened with the loss of her business, Chanell decides to fight back. Giving air to the town's racial stereotypes, Chanell forces the townsfolk to confront their racism and see themselves as they really are. Intense and honest, Pawpaw Patch is a powerful and strongly evocative novel of old passions in the New South.