A portrait of a rural Iowa community in the mid-twentieth century, this novel portrays the intimate, secret lives of people who seldom reveal themselves. There is the minister, haunted by a memory of a guilt too terrible to face; marital love blooming in the middle of a fierce winter storm; an unjust father regretting his oppression of his son; a young girl discovering the harmony of nature and the wholesomeness of her body; a family coping with a deadly disease by evasiveness; a middle-aged father possessed of a forbidden lust. These stories and others are woven into a tapestry that displays the very fabric of life.
"Mr. Harnack writes with such relish and gusto, with such humor and such flashes of verbal magic..."
--The New York Times
"The style is fresh, vital. There are no tricks, no cliches. Every word, every phrase carries its own weight. This is a powerful story, powerfully told."
--The Kansas City Star
"It is difficult to convey the strength, the truth, the breath of life the book contains."
--Omaha World-Herald
