In 1950 the Arnows moved to 40 acres of land near Ann Arbor, Michigan. She published her most famous work "The Dollmaker" in 1954. This Great American Novel about a poor Kentucky family forced by economic necessity to move to Detroit reflected her own life, but also reflects the experiences of many Appalachians who migrated from their homes for the promise of better lives in the industrialized North. Told through the eyes of Gertie Nevels, a woman torn from the woods and farmland to move with her children to join her husband living in World War II factory workers' housing in Detroit, it can be seen as a work of feminist fiction. Arnow herself disputed this characterization however, preferring to see it as an individual woman's struggle to survive in a harsh and changing world Of her writing she said, "I am afflicted with too many words ... Like the characters in my books, I talk too much and tell things I shouldn't tell."