All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal.Tanner is an old white man from Georgia who has gone to live with his daughter in New York City after a doctor of mixed white and black ancestry purchases the land on which Tanner and his friend Coleman, an African American, had been squatting in Georgia.
Out of pride, Tanner refuses to operate a distillery on the land for the doctor and instead chooses to move in with his daughter who thinks he should leave his shack in Georgia.
Instead of doing this he handed Coleman a pair of hand-whittled eye glasses and they later developed a close friendship.
He fantasizes about being shipped home in a coffin while still alive and in his reverie mistakes his African-American neighbor for Coleman, who sticks his arms and legs through the spokes under the banister where he is later found dead.
Tanner's daughter initially buries him in New York but eventually reburies him in Georgia when she feels overwhelming guilt about not following his wishes.