Face the Winter Naked

Book excerpt: For fans of Steinbeck's timeless classic, THE GRAPES OF WRATH Daniel Tomelin, a battle-worn veteran with PTSD--haunted by the carnage of World War 1--deserts his wife and children in the Great Depression and becomes a hobo seeking work and relief from his nightmares. This page-turning tale of courage is set in a tragic era in which hope was sometimes all they had and parallels today's economic turmoil and unemployment. ... "We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. The poorhouse is vanishing from among us." (Herbert Hoover, accepting the Republican presidential nomination. Palo Alto, California, August 1928) ... It's a wife and mother providing for her children under miserable, heartbreaking circumstances, while her husband tramps around the country playing a banjo, searching for answers to the puzzle of Daniel Tomelin, keeping his hillbilly sense of humor, his humanity, his love of God and nature intact, while deep inside feeling ashamed and unworthy of the family he loves with all his heart. Like scores of other men who abandoned their families during the Depression, Daniel's wounded pride for being unable to care for his wife and children prevents him from going home. . . . And if her deserting husband has the guts to show his face again, his wife, LaDaisy--who finds the strength and means to provide for her fatherless children while fending off the advances of a man with the power to leave them homeless--may feel like killing him! FACE THE WINTER NAKED provides an engrossing read in which Turner interweaves history, geography, and a compelling love story. More than that, it is a story that looks beyond the surface, delving into the inner workings of the human mind, a powerful narrative that illuminates larger issues of humanity that are timeless and volatile and just as apropos today as decades ago: - War - Political strife - Economic collapse - Environmental catastrophe - Division of families - Cruelty and oppression - Poverty, inequity, and all the faces of prejudice. But it is also about love and faith and strength and hope, forgiveness, and perseverance. Readers may feel they are traveling with this simple carpenter through the Ozark hills of Missouri as he wears out his cardboard "Hoover" insoles searching for his next meal, an odd job that pays only pennies, or shelter from the dust and sweltering heat that summer of 1932. But they'll be glad they're not. ____"FACE THE WINTER NAKED is a gorgeously written and evocative novel of an earlier economic crisis: the Great Depression. Readers looking for a stunning read, intelligent and emotional on every level, will not be disappointed." ~ Lauren Baratz-Logsted, author of "Crazy Beautiful" and "The Education of Bet"