Cold Sassy Tree / Leaving Cold Sassy

“Simply great . . . Burns is as good a writer about the South as you’re going to read for a long, long time.” —Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A classic bestseller, Cold Sassy Tree is the story of Will Tweedy, a fourteen-year-old boy coming of age at the turn of the century in rural Georgia. His grandfather, a recent widower, inspires a whirlwind of gossip in their small town when he marries a woman half his age. Brimming with characters who are wise, unimpeachably pious, and deliciously irreverent, it is a resplendent treasure. The unfinished sequel, Leaving Cold Sassy, follows Will Tweedy into adulthood, as he grapples with the influences of the modern world on his cherished southern hometown.

Olive Ann Burns (1924–1990) was born on a farm in Banks County, Georgia. She received a degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and for ten years was on the Sunday magazine staff of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She turned to writing as a respite during treatment for cancer. Her first novel, Cold Sassy Tree, made her a best-selling author at age 60.