The Last Carolina Girl (2023) is a work of historical fiction by Meagan Church. Set in North Carolina in the mid-1930s, the story follows teenage protagonist Leah Payne as she grapples with identity, grief, and developing her sense of autonomy in the face of adversity. Church drew inspiration from her family’s own personal history while crafting her narrative about the American eugenics movement: Church’s Aunt Virginia endured a forced sterilization surgery.

This guide refers to the 2023 e-book edition published by Sourcebooks.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide discuss eugenics, forced sterilization, child abuse, and death of parents. This guide also briefly mentions rape.

Plot Summary

Leah Payne, the novel’s protagonist and narrator, looks back on a tumultuous year in her adolescence, during which she experienced tragedy, grief, and loss. While the narration is primarily linear, Leah occasionally provides insights from her distant future as it relates to the bulk of her story. She opens the novel with a vivid memory of witnessing a double rainbow with her father, Harley Payne, on a North Carolina beach.

Leah and Harley live a humble life renting a small, uninsulated cottage from their wealthier neighbors, the Barnas, in Supply, North Carolina. While they occasionally want more wealth, security, food, and possessions, they’re content with the life and love they have built with each other. Leah cares for a stray cat named Maeve, with whom she enjoys a close bond. Leah’s mother, Emma, died during childbirth, a loss from which Harley never fully recovers. Harley gifts Leah a sapling and seashell every year on her birthday, which they plant and place near Emma’s grave. Leah struggles to make friends at school; the other children bully her for her lower-class status, developmental delays, and health condition resembling epilepsy. Although he fails to defend Leah at school, Jesse Barna, the Barnas’ only child, is the same age as Leah and serves as Leah’s confidant and supportive friend. Jesse supports Leah’s dream to live at the beach someday.

A rare mid-day winter thunder and hailstorm strikes Supply, causing a work accident that kills Harley. A tree falls on Harley and Leah’s cottage the same day, rendering it uninhabitable. The Barnas and Tulla, the Barnas’ housemaid, care for Leah as she navigates her initial grief. Although Leah desperately wants to remain with the Barnas, the family transports her hours away to Matthews, North Carolina, where Leah believes she will live with an anonymous foster family, the Griffins.

Mrs. Griffin devastates Leah’s dream of acquiring a home and family by forcing Leah to work as the family’s helpmate. The Griffins have three children and live in a large Victorian house, but Leah must sleep in a small, dirty closet off the house’s back porch. Mrs. Griffin prevents Leah from attending school, instead giving her numerous daily domestic chores. Nevertheless, Mrs. Griffin receives extensive praise from her friends for caring for an orphan. Leah hears about the Griffins’ previous helpmate, Alma, whom Leah assumes was another orphan like her. She worries that Alma now lives in an institution for children. Leah develops close relationships with the Griffins’ three children, especially Mary Ann, the youngest. The Griffin children often find themselves at odds with their mother. Mr. Griffin works as a traveling salesman; he kowtows to his wife’s rules and avoids conflict at all costs.

The longer Leah stays with the Griffins, the more she realizes that Mrs. Griffin is secretive about her adolescence. Leah discovers that Mr. and Mrs. Griffin’s hometown was Raleigh, where Harley and Emma initially met. While Leah is trying to learn more about Mrs. Griffin’s past, she finds letters from Jesse that Mrs. Griffin has been hiding from her. Leah sneaks a letter to Jesse, inviting him to meet her at a large fair. He does, and after their joyous reunion, Leah begins to plot her return to the Barnas’ property. Meanwhile, Mrs. Griffin holds several meetings in support of Dr. Foster’s eugenics program in Matthews, North Carolina. She introduces Leah to Dr. Foster, and he completes a brief, incomplete examination of her physical health and intellectual abilities. He asks questions about Leah’s seizures.

On the day Leah intends to drive with Michael Henry, the oldest Griffin child, to Supply, North Carolina, Mrs. Griffin surprises Leah with a visit to Dr. Foster’s practice. Leah fights against Mrs. Griffin, a nurse, and Dr. Foster when she realizes that they intend to perform surgery without Leah’s permission. The nurse sedates Leah just as Dr. Foster reveals that Mrs. Griffin is Leah’s aunt. Leah wakes up in her closet, unaware as to how she got there. Mrs. Griffin ignores Leah for several days; Mary Ann sneaks Leah food. Leah assumes that Mrs. Griffin is her mother’s sister since Emma grew up in an upper-class family.

Eventually, Mr. Griffin rouses Leah from her recovery room, asking her to help the Griffin children prepare for a debutante ball. Leah does so, and although she is in significant pain, she agrees to serve punch at the event. Leah eavesdrops on Mrs. Griffin’s conversation with a friend, during which the women discuss Leah’s sterilization procedure. Distraught, Leah leaves the ball and walks home. She burns the blue dress she wore to the ball in the Griffins’ fireplace. She decides to take control of the remaining parts of her life.

Leah confronts Mr. and Mrs. Griffin when they arrive home from the ball. She learns that Mrs. Griffin is actually her father’s sister. When Harley ran away with Emma, he left Mrs. Griffin to fend for herself with negligent parents, living in squalor. Mr. and Mrs. Griffin fought to climb social and economic ladders, often faking their wealth to fit in with high society members. Alma, an older woman, worked for very little pay; Mrs. Griffin dismissed her employee for failing to punish Mary Ann by withholding food. When Mr. Griffin hears about Jesse’s letters, he returns Leah to the Barnas’ home the following day. Leah leaves without saying goodbye to her cousins, never seeing them again.

The Barnas willingly accept Leah and care for her as she nears adulthood. Leah now regards the Barnas household, including Tulla and Maeve, as her found family. Though she never returns to school, Leah makes a living tending to Mr. Barna’s garden and orchard, selling produce in Mr. Barna’s stores. She returns to Harley’s cottage, which Mr. Barna repaired while Leah was away.

Jesse attends college and enlists in the military during World War II, but their romance develops when he returns. They move to Holden Beach, North Carolina, where they live indefinitely. Leah closes her story in 2006. The loss of her fertility causes her anger and grief for decades, but Leah finds peace in her life with Jesse. She never sees a more beautiful sunset than the double rainbow she witnessed with Harley in 1935.