A chance encounter with a forgotten childhood friend makes a woman take stock of her own shortcomings through the years. A rural family's peaceful Sunday night is disrupted by a frightening, unexpected visitor. A charming blind student brings a new perspective to an emotionally distant teacher. A woman is eyewitness to a neighbor's struggle with alcoholism and the tragic outcome of his problems. These incidents and many others are captured in A Place That Was Home. Chronicling a Western North Carolina woman’s experiences from the 1960s to the present, the twenty-one personal essays in A Place That Was Home vividly depict a regional world in which families live, work, and worship and others suffer from dire circumstances. A Place That Was Home invites the reader into this compelling world.