Genevieve Clay is twenty-one years old and married at the time she and Clark literally run into each other outside Medlin
Thaxton’s Drugstore. They immediately fall in love and begin planning a new life together, but two years later and before they
can be married, Clark loses his life along with many other soldiers on the Normandy beaches. Genevieve mourns, but refuses
to give up the life which she expected to have with Clark, and begins a fantasy life that even death cannot take from her.
Living inside the hundred and twenty-year-old Clay house, the Widow Clay never goes out, since reality for her is the one lived
inside her mind and not the environment. Several years into Genevieve Clay’s self-imposed exile, an adventuresome young
woman by the name of Penelope Brown comes to Clay Corners and learns of Genevieve’s isolation. Intrigued by the older
woman’s penchant for the solitary existence, as well as her own lack of lodging for the evening, Ms. Brown secretly enters the
Clay residence on Friday afternoon at the start of the Labor Day weekend. Penny Brown soon discovers, however, that the
difficulty in getting inside the old Clay house is not the hardship but in getting back out.
Through unimaginable circumstances and as a result of entering the Clay house, Penny Brown finds herself caught up in a tangle
of hatred that goes back to her birth in the guise of her adopted sister, Stephanie Lehman. For the first time ever and without
knowing that Penny is hidden in the Clay house, Stephanie decides to visit Genevieve Clay on Friday evening. Stephanie
Lehman’s inaugural visit to Genevieve’s residence is due to information she receives from a woman on her deathbed. The dying
woman is Mollie Mae Bell and she tells Stephanie that she is her birth mother. Being ill equipped to deal with the shocking
news of her parentage Stephanie experiences trauma. Later when she is confronted with more bad news her already fragile
emotional state causes her to completely lose control. The ripples from Stephanie’s temper tantrum extend beyond her
awareness to include Jasper Banks, an ex-convict, who also shows up at Genevieve’s domicile that same Friday evening.
The Labor Day weekend of 1994 is an epiphany in Jasper Bank’s life, and is directly linked to his sneaking onto Genevieve
Clay’s property. On Friday night under the cover of darkness he arrives in the back garden of the Clay property, then creeps
through a tangle of jungle-like vines before discovering a basement window. He peeks into this window and the scene that he
witnesses inside causes him to panic and run away. Jasper has a dark night of the soul before coming to the understanding that
he must risk the loss of his own safety and look beyond his present comfort if he is to achieve the inner peace that he desires.
Jasper’s lofty resolution to this challenge causes him to make a forty-five degree turn and his life is never again the same.
Love and obsession are forces that bring characters like Jackson Toler and Ashland Davenport together in Old Woman.
Jackson Toler is Genevieve Clay’s attorney and he and his wife, Ashland, have a strange though modern marriage. He has a
passion for his wife but no particular love for her. She on the other hand cares little for Jackson and for a period of time is
drawn into a relationship with Stephanie Lehman. Both Jackson Toler’s father and grandfather love Genevieve Clay, but she
scorns them. Genevieve also disdains her husband, Tiny, although they become friends in the latter days of their marriage.
Elbert (Tiny) Clay, last surviving member of the Clay family, has affection for his wife but no passion for her. Early on in his
marriage to Genevieve, she rejects him and this results in his turning to the town’s prostitute, Mollie May Belle, with whom he
has a lengthy relationship.
Penelope Brown, divorcée and survivor of a brief and loveless marriage, is not looking for love and is surprised to find it
waiting for her at a time when she least expects it. Before she finds love, however, a treacherous situation of her own making
puts her life in peril. During this ordeal Penny discovers that her imagined self-sufficiency is not enough to see her home, and
the only foreseeable chance she has of getting out alive is if a stranger can change his proverbial stripes.
Genevieve Clay’s passionate love for "Clark" Clarksdale turns into an obsession after he is killed in battle during World War II
and she wants to die, believing that only death can reunite them. She does not die but lives another fifty years, all the while
yearning for deliverance. Literally haunting the Clay house while still alive, Genevieve is surprised to discover even after her
death that freedom continues to elude her. She remains trapped inside the historic Clay house until one fateful day three pot-
smoking teenagers break in and set her free.
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