Read this excerpt from The Land.Robert’s grandma on his mama’s side always hated the fact that my daddy allowed Cassie and me to sit at his table and enjoy the life she felt was owed only to her daughter’s children. When the daughter died, her mother was there in my daddy’s house. Of course, I was only a baby at the time, but later I grew to know her hatred. She had stayed on in my daddy’s house and took over running it. I remember she was always hard on my mama, and on Cassie and me. When my daddy was away during mealtime, she would send Cassie and me from the table. When that happened, Robert always went with me, and she couldn’t make him come back. Worse than that, she would sometimes say cruel things to us. "They’re like mites,” she said once. "You get them in your bed, and you don’t ever get rid of them.”