Watauga is a compilation of short fiction comprised of two novellas and five stories. The theme of the work is the struggles of working class life in the American South. The stories are set in a fictional town in the southern USA called Greeneville.

The lives of single people in a small town are elaborated: they included Andrew (a widower and solo attorney) and Dorothy a divorced socialite Elena and Gwyneth reappear from earlier books-two single women trying to find security and happiness as room-mates amid life's difficutlies. Elena is a clerk at Sanchez Grocery and Gwyneth is a cook at Zack's Chicken. All of these characters reside in the same fictional Southern town of Greeneville-set in the foothills of the Appalachians.