Ninety-something-year-old Jacob Jankowski remembers his time in the circus as a young man during the Great Depression, and his friendship with Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, and Rosie, the elephant, who gave them hope.

"A story that traces the bonds between four generations of resourceful Southern women through stories passed from one generation to another."--

Describes the life of Augie March, a poor Chicago boy growing up during the Depression, and his search for a career. Augie's nonconformity leads him into an eventful, humorous, and sometimes earthy way of life.

Based upon the author's firsthand experience while working with refugee farmers in the Farm Security Administration camps of California. Born in 1907 in an Otoe Indian community in the Oklahoma Territory, Babb joined the FSA camp in California in 1938 tohelp uprooted farmers. She submitted the manuscript for this book in 1939, but it was shelved because of John Steinbeck's 1939 best-selling novel, The grapes of wrath.

The war to end all wars is over, and the soldiers have come home. Birch Tucker, with his wife Trudy, and his sons, makes his way back to Shiloh, Arkansas, his boyhood home, to carve out a new life for his family. Mrs. Meyer, now a financial columnist for the "New York Times," moves among the wealthy and influential stock barons of the world.