The main characters are three sisters who come of age in a house run by their abusive and womanizing father and must constantly find ways to take care of their depressed and alcoholic mother.

Gowdy says her inspiration for the book was the idea of a Canadian family living during the Cold War and practicing using their bomb shelter in the back yard.

The narrator and main character of the title short story of her 1992 collection, We So Seldom Look On Love is an assistant embalmer at a funeral home who has sex with the corpses of attractive young men before they are buried.

Gowdy's novel Mister Sandman revolves around the family of Joan, a young autistic girl with a savant talent for playing classical music on the piano.

And The Globe and Mail says, "Gowdy's is a peacemaking genius, unique in its talent for the translation of strangeness to second nature...." She was appointed a member of the Order of Canada effective 5 October 2006.

[3] In June 2008, Gowdy's 2007 novel Helpless, which follows the stalking and kidnap of a nine-year-old girl, was abridged and adapted for BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime.