American novelist and short-story writer noted for her examinations of evil and isolation among American Southerners, both black and white.

Grau's first book, The Black Prince, and Other Stories (1955), had considerable success. Her first novel, The Hard Blue Sky (1958), concerns Cajun fishermen and their families. This was followed by The House on Coliseum Street (1961), which examines the lives of a mother and her five daughters, each from a different liaison, and their relationships with men. Three generations of the Howland family, a once-mighty Southern dynasty, are chronicled in The Keepers of the House (1964), which won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Among Grau's later novels are The Condor Passes (1971), Evidence of Love (1977), and Roadwalkers (1994). Her other short-story collections include The Wind Shifting West (1973), Nine Women (1985), and Selected Stories (2003).