First published 1999
Gertie Nevels lives quietly in the Kentucky mountains with her children, carving wood and tending to her family's needs. When World War II tears through their world, she loses control of everything she knows. The war economy forces them from their backwoods home into the industrial chaos of Detroit. In the city, Gertie faces crushing poverty that threatens to destroy her family. The urban environment suffocates everything she values about their mountain life. She struggles against forces that seem determined to strip away her children's futures and erase their rural heritage. Through it all, Gertie refuses to surrender her ability to create beauty with her hands. She carves wood even as the harsh city world closes in around them. Her art becomes both refuge and resistance against the ugliness that surrounds her family. Gertie must find ways to protect what matters most while adapting to a world that shows no mercy to displaced mountain people.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Detroit, Kentucky
Period: World War II
608 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Avon