The Sweet By and By

Meet five North Carolina women who are about to change the way you think about friendship. For Rhonda, a gritty, fun-loving hairdresser in tight jeans, the sights and smells of Ridgecrest Nursing Center are depressing. But before she can change her mind about working there, two residents glue themselves to her: Margaret, droll and whip-smart, with a will of iron that never fails her even when her body does, and Bernice, an avid country music fan who is rarely lucid. Together with Lorraine, their church-going, God-questioning nurse, and her daughter, April, bright and ambitious, they lock arms in courage and humor for a journey that speaks to us all — of how we live and die, of how we love and forgive. “He made me laugh and cry....Johnson’s five women are as convincing as Reynolds Price’s Kate Vaiden and Allan Gurganus’s Lucy Marsden....Pure Southern music.” — Raleigh News & Observer “Packed with so much poignancy readers might want to keep tissues handy....This is a novel not to be missed.” — Las Vegas Review-Journal “Heartfelt and stunning . . . a genuine page-turner.” — Adriana Trigiani