Kim Vogel Sawyer, Where Willows Grow

Where Willows Grow

Kim Vogel Sawyer

Bethany House, Apr 2007, $13.99

ISBN: 0764201832

In 1936 Spencer, Kansas, Anna Mae Phipps feels all alone in the world as the family farm is dying due to the drought and her beloved spouse Harley has left their home to work construction for the federal government's Works in Progress Administration. She feels isolated and abandoned as she has no husband, no mule, an infant Marjorie, an older preadolescent child Dorothy, and a third on the way. Anna Mae fears that Harley will not come back to her and the kids; if he does he probably will not find them on the farm that they will surely lose.

Harley misses his family as he loves his wife and two children. He desperately needs to bring in income to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads; that is why he sold their last mule and took a crazy job on the other side of the state building a castle in Lindsborg. He left his spouse angry with him, but he knows the corn cannot grow and if it did who could afford to buy it? He plans to make enough money so that he can come home to his family on their farm.

WHERE WILLOWS GROW is a strong Americana family drama that focuses on the impact of the Depression in Kansas. Readers will feel Anna Mae's sense of desertion and hopelessness while also knowing how much Harley misses her and their children, but feels he must do what is needed to insure his family is fed and sheltered. Though the economic climax seems too simple, historical fiction readers will appreciate Kim Vogel Sawyer's deep look at what a 1930s family did to survive on a drought ridden Plains.

Harriet Klausner