A story of lives intertwined

There are two very distinct families in Between, Georgia. One family, the Crabtrees, is poor, loud, ill-mannered and rough around the edges. The other family, the Fretts, is financially comfortable, cultured and mild-mannered.

The Crabtrees and the Fretts have never gotten along, mainly stemming from cultural differences: The Crabtrees think the Fretts are snobs, and the Fretts think the Crabtrees are uncouth animals.

When 15-year-old Hazel Crabtree showed up on Bernese Fretts’ doorstep at 3 a.m. about to give birth to a baby her family didn’t even know about, the Fretts and the Crabtrees were linked forever.

Hazel, who is a tough and mean know-it-all, couldn’t care less about the baby, while Stacia Frett, Bernese’s deaf and mute daughter, decides that the baby will be hers. Under promises of keeping everything a secret from Hazel’s mother, Ona Crabtree, the Fretts decide to take in baby Nonny.

But like all small towns, this town can’t keep a secret. Ona eventually finds out about her grandchild, and so begins the tug-of-war.

Nonny Frett is a woman who spends her life being pulled in two directions: between a cheating husband and the comfort of being married, between her apartment in Athens, Ga., and her family’s home in Between, and between the Crabtrees and the Fretts.

“Between, Georgia” is a tender, funny and realistic look at these feuding families’ lives. Joshilyn Jackson has captured the small-town feel perfectly: the gossip, the fighting, the love and the feeling of confinement.

Jackson’s illustration of Nonny’s struggles to find her own place in the world echoes that of women everywhere. Caught between convention and their own needs, many women never find their place at all.